Local residents initially found four bodies. However, another victim was discovered as investigation progressed. The individuals were found dead in the village of Hurmaz within the jurisdiction of Mir Ali police station.
The identities of four deceased remain unknown, while a fifth was identified as Arif, resident of Karak.
The police reported that all the deceased had been shot and killed.
According to the police, the victims appeared to be non-locals, and were riding on two separate trucks. One had foams mattresses while the other was a vegetable truck.
The incident comes days after six non-local young barbers were killed in an incident of sinister violence that seeks to capitalise on ethnic faultlines in North Waziristan tribal district.
The bodies of the six men were discovered in the fields of Moski village, located in Mir Ali. Preliminary investigation suggests that the victims, all of whom hailed from Punjab, were shot dead execution style.
The victims, all below 30 years of age, included two youths less than 18 years old, hence without national identity cards (NICs). All of them were barbers, having recently migrated to North Waziristan to pursue their trade. Sources reveal that the victims owned barber shops in Mir Ali Bazaar.
According to sources, the barbers were reported to have been kidnapped before meeting their tragic end. They were abducted under the cloak of darkness and subsequently murdered by unidentified assailants. It was not until morning that the bodies were spotted by locals in the fields, who immediately alerted the law enforcers. The bodies were shifted to Mir Ali Hospital for medico-legal formalities.
For a separate incident, police told "southpunjabnews.com" that unidentified miscreants opened fire on Constable Jan Alam outside a bank in Mir Ali tehsil of North Waziristan.
He said that the unfortunate constable was there to withdraw his salary and was targeted on his way back home. His body was rushed to the District Headquarters Hospital Mir Ali where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.
“He was a resident of Hurmaz village and the attackers once again managed to escape unchallenged after committing the crime,” said the official of the local police station, adding a large contingent of police reached there and launched a door-to-door search operation but there was no trace of the attackers.
Police registered an FIR and opened investigation in the case.
Police said that it was without any doubt a case of terrorism as the cop had no personal feud with anyone.
Nearly three weeks after the killing of six barbers belonging to Dera Ghazi Khan in North Waziristan, five more people, including at least three non-residents, were found dead in the same Mir Ali tehsil of the district on Saturday.
Police said four of the deceased were found in the Harmoz area of Mir Ali tehsil and another was spotted in the Mir Ali bazaar. They said only three of them were later identified as driver Nasibullah and cleaner Attaur Rehman, both residents of Lakki Marwat district, and Arif Khan, a resident of Karak district.
All the five bodies were shifted to hospital for autopsy, the officials said.
The police also found two vehicles parked at the vegetable market that they believed belonged to Nasibullah and Attaur Rehman. Their murder triggered protests in their hometown Lakki Marwat, where locals took to the streets after their bodies were brought there from North Waziristan.
The locals staged a protest demonstration on the busy Indus Highway. One of the protesters told Dawn that both deceased hailed from the Manjiwala area of Lakki Marwat district and they had just stopped in the Mir Ali bazaar while transporting vegetables to Tall in a pick-up truck.
He said the families of the deceased as well as other villagers got infuriated when their bodies were brought to the village from North Waziristan district. They took the bodies to Manjiwala Chowk and blocked traffic on the Peshawar-Karachi Highway. The highway closure caused queuing up of vehicles on both sides, besides troubling transporters and commuters.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killings.
Earlier on January 2, six barbers hailing from Punjab’s Dera Ghazi Khan district were abducted before being killed in the Mosaki village of Mir Ali tehsil. According to police, the barbers had been living and running shops in Mir Ali bazaar for past many years.
