Phone porn sparks clash

PORNOGRAPHIC pictures sent via a mobile phone sparked a tribal fight that has left one man dead and several others injured in Tari, Southern Highlands province.
Heavy fighting was reported in villages near the gas fields of Hides and Angore since Saturday, but facilities there and work on the PNG LNG Project were not under threat.
Police said the tribal fight started on Saturday morning between the Tapo and Pipi clans of Waralo and Haro villages, situated about 10km south-west of Tari town and on the Tari-Koroba-Komo highway that leads to the multi-billion kina PNG LNG Project sites at Hides and Angore gas fields.
Yesterday morning, heavily-armed police Mobile Squad 09 members drove to the battlefield in a four-vehicle convoy and appealed to both sides to end the fighting.
This reporter who travelled with the MS09 members saw an army of bare-chested tribal warriors from both clans decorated with face paintings and armed with bows, arrows, home-made guns and bush knives charging at each other.
One man from the Pipi clan was speared in the eye and immediately taken to the Tari general hospital for medical attention.
The policemen parked their vehicles in the middle of the highway and stopped both sides from further attacking each other.
The policemen also asked the two warring factions to stay clear off the public highway and fight in the bush if they still wanted to fight.
Police said the fight started last Saturday when a man from the Tapo clan showed pornographic pictures on his mobile phone to a young woman from the Pipi clan. The woman felt offended and reported the matter to her brothers.
Her brothers approached the man and asked him to compensate and apologise to the girl. When he refused, they attacked and assaulted the Tapo man.
The man fled and mobilised his clansmen who returned and shot dead the elder brother of the woman at point-blank range. The killing fuelled all-out warfare between the two clans.
A man from the Tapo clan said eight of their men had received spear and gun wounds while six of their houses were also burnt to ashes.
Police could not establish the number of houses burnt and men injured from the Pipi clan.
The deceased was identified as 25-year-old David Pitali Paiyali, who is survived by two wives and two children.
Provincial police commander Supt Jimmy Onopia said the fighting flared from the abuse of mobile phones.
He appealed to the people in the province to use their mobile phones for the purpose intended, which is to communicate, instead of passing around illicit pictures.
Supt Onopia also revealed a similar incident in which a man in Mendi was arrested and charged yesterday for sending pornographic pictures to a married woman.
Police in Tari also said that a similar fight broke out at Idawi in Tari late last year over an extramarital affair that began with communication using the mobile phone.
That fight reportedly claimed five lives.