Bittani, 500 supporters surrender

SECURITY forces on Saturday arrested a pro-government militia leader amid allegations that false information provided by him lead to the killing of nine civilians, reported a private TV channel.
Turkistan Bittani, who allied himself with the government after defecting from the Taliban, was taken into custody together with 24 heavily-armed colleagues in Tank, the gateway to South Waziristan.
I am here at the Kor Fort of the Frontier Corps and I am with the Army, Bittani told the German Press Agency (DPA) in a telephonic interview. I have asked all my 400 to 500 fighters to lay down the weapons, we will not resist to the security forces, he added.
Bittani came into the limelight early this year when he openly challenged Baitullah Mehsud in his South Waziristan stronghold. His men suffered heavy casualties when Mehsuds men attacked his loyalists after the Taliban leader was killed in a US drone attack in early August.
Bittani is believed to have shared valuable information with the authorities that led to the arrests of hundreds of Mehsuds men in Tank and neighbouring Dera Ismail Khan.
But his arrest came a day after some residents of Dera Ismail Khan alleged that the Army had carried out extrajudicial killing of their family members, apparently on the information provided by Bittani and his men on September 16.
The soldiers came to our village with Bittanis men and arrested nine people, said Imtiaz Ahmed Khan, a resident of Wanda Khani area of the district.
The soldiers shot dead three of them on the spot while the rest they killed at some distance and dumped their bodies in the nearby fields, he said in Dera Ismail Khan on Friday.
We demand a judicial inquiry into the incident, we want to bring to the justice those who are responsible for the brutal killings of these innocent people, said Khan.
Gul Fraz, another member whose family fell victim, alleged that Bittani had received money from the opponent tribe to kill his relatives.