Pakistan's Frontier Province bleeds with militancy

Despite the fact that the government of Pakistan is engaged in inking peace deals with the Islamist militants in the conservative Frontier province and adjacent Tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, the militancy in these Pashtuns-inhibited areas has increased instead of receding. Tall claims of the secular Awami National Party led government in the Frontier that their peace deals with the militants is a big success, succumbed to their own flaws, after successive attacks over law enforcing agencies, journalists and girls education institutions. The twin cities of Mardan and Nowshera, which were regarded as the modern and liberal cities of the Frontier, got victims to increasing threats and attacks from Islamist militants during the last couple of months.

However, Nowshera district of Frontier is the latest where Taliban related militancy has risen to a dangerous level. This district has a strategic location and is home to three military headquarters of Ordnance, Engineer Corp and Special Commandos. This district is located as a focal point adjoining Peshawar, the restive Swat area and the capital, Islamabad. The biggest Sunni [Deobandi] religious seminary Darul Ulumi Haqqania Akora Khattak is also located here. Thousands of Taliban [students] are studying in this Madrassa. Run by Maulana Samiul Haq, President of his own faction of Jamiat Ulemai Islam, the administrators of this seminary are proud of claiming that Mullah Mohammad OmarMullah Mohammad Omar, Taliban Supreme Leader, and Amirul Momineen of Afghanistan during the Taliban regime, studied here in this madrassa.

But this district remained peaceful until December last year, when for the first time a suicide bomber targetted military personnel and killed six persons. This was followed by a series of Islamists' threats to music shops and warning letters and phone calls to girls educational institutions and 'annoying' journalists. Those who obeyed them silently, remained safe. And anyone who tried to resist or 'cheat' or annoy them, got severe punishment. Recently on May 31, a music shop in Nowshera's Ziarat Kaka Sahib was blown up with bomb blasts, as its owner Mr Shah Sawar, had dared to resist and disobey the warning letters of Islamist militants asking him to wind up his music business.

A principal of local girls' college in Nowshera, on condition of anonymity for the fear of Taliban, told that during the last one year, she has received more than a dozen warning letters and telephone calls from the local Islamist militants asking her to enforce strict veil frome head-to-toe over her female students, otherwise they will blew up their school. The principal told she cannot report this to the government, as the law enforcing agencies have lost their writ to the militants, and we have no option than to follow militants' orders and instructions.

A local journalist, who didn't want his name to be disclosed, told this scribe that they too are forced to get dictation from these militants while filing stories on issues related to the war on terror. He said, 'in our newspaper stories we cannot inscribe them as 'extremists' or 'militants' or 'terrorists'. We are bound to name them as Taliban or Jehadis with a positive connotation. Most of the times, our newspaper head offices are not ready to publish them [militants] with their desired adjectives, and then as a result we, the local journalists, bear the brunt of Islamist militants', he complained. It could be beating, harrassing, kidnapping or even killing, he explained. He cited one recent example of a Voice of America's broadcaster, Muhammad Qasim, whose in-laws, he believes were killed by the Islamists militants, for Muhammad was talking too much against Taliban and terrorist groups over his radio which is heard heavily in the Pashtun areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He said everyone in the town including the police knows the fact that Islamist militants were harrassing and threatening Muhammad's family in Nowshera's Badrashi village, but who else is to dare to speak if Muhammad's own relatives are tight-lipped over that gruesome incident.

A local governmnet official, who didn't want to be named for certain known reasons, said that they had receieved information that some people with small arms and dressed as Taliban fighters were seen visiting Abdul Basit home, and people in their neighbourhood were talking that local Taliban leader Qari Kamran had issued threats that if they failed to stop their Washington-based brother-in-law broadcasting propaganda against the cause of Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, they should be then ready for the harsh consequences. The local government official said they tried to somehow know the story details but added, 'unfortunately, Abdul Basit and his family didn't disclose the matter in time. Maybe we could have find a way out to avert the gruesome tragedy of the murder of Abdul Basit's mother and young brother'.

City Police Investigation Officer, Abdur Rashid Khan says, Taliban leader Qari Kamran is the same person who, last week on June 5, was heading the militants' group during a two-hour long clash with police, in which the militants had used heavy weapons lincluding rocket-propelled grenades. Police officer says they had seized rifles, grenades, suicide vests, explosives and communication equipment from the house in Badrashi where these militants had taken sancturary. Khand adds, durig the clash two policemen and one militant had injured. He identified the injured militant as Syed Hussain Amin who belongs to Mirali in North Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan. Police investigation officer says they have started investigations from the injured Amin, however, he adds, the important militant leaders have managed their escape.

In the adjacent village of Kaka Sahib, threatening letters were sent to a school, run by the Workers' Welfare Board. An official at the school said few months back some threatening letters and telephone calls were received asking the school administration to order its female staffers to wear veils and make separate arrangements for male and female students. The school official adds that the head of the institutionl Colonel (r) Rashid called police and investigation was launched, but so far no one has been arrested.

Islamic militants and Taliban fighters are rapidly spreading beyond the country's lawless tribal areas and it is widely feared that if the new government of secular Awami National Party in the Frontier didn't take some drastic and calculated measures, the growing militancy could engulf the rest of Pakistan. Talibanisation in the conservative Frontier has increased to a dangerous level during the past one year. Cities like Peshawar, Nowshera and Mardan which were once considered as forts guaranteeing peace, are now shattered for its own existence. General public demands that the new governments in Frontier and center were elected for restoring peace and establishing writ of the government and not for inking peace agreements with militants only.