Land feud kills 15 in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD - A clash between two rival groups embroiled in a land feud left 15 people dead and seven injured in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, media reports said Sunday.

The attack occurred in Sarya village of Gujrat district Saturday, the latest in a series of local clashes which have killed nearly 50 people in the last 15 years.

The News daily said a suspect named Nadeem, alias Dima, and his eight accomplices sprayed their rivals with bullets when they were sinking a well on a disputed piece of land.

Six of the victims belonged to the same family, while the rest included labourers and passersby.

Violent feuds over land are common in Pakistan’s rural areas where nearly 70 percent of its 170 million people are involved in subsistence farming.

Separately, police said a man allegedly committed suicide Sunday after killing his mother and four sisters in Sargodha, a town in Punjab that hosts one of Pakistan’s key airbases.

Former air force warrant officer Mohammad Aslam discovered the bodies of his wife and children, all with bullet wounds, when he returned to his house after offering morning prayers in a mosque.

Police suspected that Aslam’s son shot dead his family and then himself after some altercation.