By saying, “Nobody would be allowed to challenge the writ of the government,” Chief Minister of NWFP Ameer Haider Khan Hoti has ruled out the possibility that the Taliban would enter the provincial capital and get control of the administration.
The business community in Peshawar started feeling insecure when NWFP’s Inspector General of Police Naveed Malik in an interview said Talibanisation is spreading day by day and there is possibility that militants would capture Peshawar.
With reports that radical elements of the Bara-based organisation have started visiting barber shops and video centres in Peshawar asking people to keep away from selling CDs and shaving beards, insecurity is prevailing among all the segments of the society.
The activists of the said organisation have picked a businessman from Hashtnagri area, who was a currency bond dealer and involved in payments over interest.
Warnings have been given to many others who are in the property business and even some of the dealers have been picked up from different areas of Peshawar. Their relatives have been asked to come to Bara, Khyber Agency, as the matter would be decided by the head of the organisation.
Reports said the NWFP government has constituted a committee for distribution of funds amounting to Rs115.1 million among the people affected by the military operation in Swat and other adjacent districts. The committee would determine losses and distribute funds amongst the affected people or their legal heirs. With such compensation, the NWFP government has decided to withdraw all cases against more than 600 local Taliban who were arrested during Swat operation. A summary about their cases has been sent to Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti.
Despite all such compensations and accepting almost all demands of militants across the tribal belt and district Swat, the government is still in hot waters, facing an embarrassing situation many a times during the last week, when government officials were picked up from Lakki Marwat, Kohat and Darra Adam Khel, while at least 16 members of Christian community had been kidnapped from Academy Town Peshawar allegedly by the militants of Bara-based organization. The police were attacked in separate incidents in Swat and Dear Ismail Khan, whereas assaults on Khasadar forces in Mohmand Agency and Waziristan areas still continue. The Christians were however later released and handed over to the political administration on Sunday.
Taliban in the Mohmand Agency have warned women to either wear burqas or face punishment, a private TV channel reported last Sunday. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has pasted posters announcing this in various parts of the agency. The posters ask women not to work in the fields and prohibit them from attending marriage ceremonies and visiting doctors and markets without a male escort.
Afrasiab Khattak, provincial president of Awami National Party, has said Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) is trying to make the NWFP government’s peace agreement with Swat militants a failure.
“To cover its failure, MMA is talking about ANP’s failure in bringing peace to the NWFP,” ANP provincial president said in a brief chat with mediapersons after attending a World Refugee Day programme.
MMA central secretary-general and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman had reportedly said peace agreements existed in the province but peace was non-existent.
The JUI-F chief had also criticised the ANP, saying being a secular party it was taking credit for imposition of Sharia in Malakand division.
The Maulana had also stated that on one hand, the ANP did not accept peaceful political struggle of religious parties for imposition of Shariah law in the province while on the other, it was negotiating with those who had taken up arms for the same purpose.
The peace process initiated by the Awami National Party-led government with local Taliban for the establishment of its writ in the NWFP would continue despite “numerous implementation difficulties”, NWFP Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti told reporters.
Hoti admitted that the NWFP government had faced problems while striking peace deals with Taliban, but added that the peace process would be continued in order to defeat “nefarious designs of anti-peace elements”.
The situation in certain parts particularly in the tribal areas surrounding Peshawar had given the impression that militants might enter Peshawar. People are found discussing that things are becoming out of control of the government as reports of militants entering Peshawar’s different areas could be seen in newspapers.
The observers believed that since the formation of the new government in the province, incidents of suicide bomb attacks and bomb blasts have decreased. It may be due to the planning of the coalition government of the ANP and PPP, they requested all those circles who are criticising the government’s peace deal, to stay away from peace deal and let the government deal with the complex problem successfully.