Little did anyone perceive while hearing and reading reports of local Taliban’s accesses in the tribal belt and Northern parts of the province, that soon the provincial capital, Peshawar, would be in the line of fire. Although, there were fears the same fate might befall the provincial capital, no one expected the ‘Taliban-tsunami’ to hit so soon.
However, threatening letters to doctors directing them to lower their fees; asking traders to remove female mannequins from the shops; warning the school drivers to avoid seating female students in the front seats; and frightening various female educational institutions and English schools to change their syllabus and uniforms have all come as a rude awakening for the residents of Peshawar, instilling a sense of anxiety and depression among all them.
Though, threats to video centers and Internet cafés were not new, but these new threats are one step too far in a dangerous direction. The example of threatening the traders was earlier set by the provincial government of Muttahida Majlas-e-Amal (MMA). When Akram Khan Durrani was the chief minister of the province, most of the traders at University Road, and in cantonment and city areas were threatened to remove female mannequins from their show cases, or face action on charges of spreading obscenity. The lone cultural centre in Peshawar, Nishtar Hall, was closed down (barring all the cultural activities), costly neon and hoarding boards carrying female pictures were burnt and damaged by the workers of MMA and cinema owners were asked not to display the boards outside the cinemas.
But whatever they wanted to screen inside the cinema, they were allowed. Nishtar Hall was both a source of income for low paid local artistes and also a source of entertainment to the people. But with the closure of the hall, the obscenity which the MMA government claimed to stop through its closure, spread in the whole province. The local artistes started making CD dramas in every nook and corner of the city. Some other parts like Swat, Nowshera, Mardan, Khyber agency were also used for filming the CDs. The cable operators started showing such CDs, and the obscenity reached every home. As the MMA declared the drama a curse, it started reaching every home with their attempt to close the cultural centers.
Most of such activities, like threatening the institutions, the traders and artistes were started during the rule of MMA in the province. But threatening doctor community is a new one.
According to a report, Pakistani Taliban have issued threats to well-known doctors in Peshawar and its adjacent areas, asking them to lower their check-up fee, otherwise their clinics would be blown up.
A senior physician told Weekly Pulse on condition of anonymity that he had received threatening calls three times during past two months. “The man politely asked me to reduce the fee, otherwise they (the militants) would have no option but to blow up my clinic,” he said, adding that after receiving such threats he was seriously considering the option of leaving the country for good.
“Being a citizen of a Pukhtoon province, I cannot discuss the matter with any one as people would taunt me as a coward, but I am really tense days,” another doctor told a journalist. He said a person on phone told him that the Taliban movement had reached Mardan, some 40 kilometers North of Peshawar, and they would soon be knocking at doors of provincial metropolis, where everything would be put in a proper order as per the teachings of Islam.
A number of other senior specialist doctors have also confirmed receiving such threatening phone calls and letters. On condition of anonymity, they told Weekly Pulse that they wanted to request the government to either provide them complete security from such elements or to take a complete and final action against them.
