Taal Matol
Roti winner
By Shoaib Hashmi
If you take up the ordinary Pakistani newspaper on a common day, your first impression would be that we are amongst the most important countries in the world. The headline invariably shows the American president fretting over some aspect of our policy, showing his concern over what we are up to and issuing instructions or sounding a warning. This is followed by something from the Secretary of State holding forth on some other aspect of what is going on here, to be followed in turn by some admiral or the President's special envoy commenting on what we are up to. There is also comment by the EU and anyone else that matters.

ideology
Another U-turn
With the PML-N gradually leaving its right of centre position, the declaration against the rise of the Taliban is perhaps a logical conclusion
By Dr Arif Azad
Nawaz Sharif has spoken against the rise of the Taliban in the wake of the Swat peace deal in recent days. We are seeing interesting transformative trends in the
PML-N vis-à-vis its policy on the Taliban. Until recently, his near silence was interpreted as the party's softness for Talibanisation. He has been an advocate of negotiations with the Taliban and hence his party's assent to the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation in the parliament. With the singular exception of Ayaz Amir, none of the PML-N member opposed the bill.

RIPPLE EFFECT
Confusion uninterrupted
By Omar R. Quraishi
As I read somewhere this past week, when is a peace deal not a peace deal? Answer: when it's signed in Pakistan between the government and the Taliban? While coherence and consistency is needed to tackle this decidedly existential threat to the country, what do we have? We have an operation currently underway in Dir and, if news reports are to be believed, another being planned in Buner.

Mumbai-based Mr and Mrs Agarwal, both in their late 60s, have an all-time favourite TV show: Dhoop Kinarey, one of Hasina Moin's best-liked drama serials that acquired an equally cult status in India at the time when it went on air.

"My parents loved to buy home videos of Pakistani serials," recalls Kartik Agarwal, 34, a media entrepreneur now settled in Singapore.

Till the late 1980s, Pakistan television was a very popular entity on both sides of the border and its shows were a rage. Ankahi, Tanhaiyyan, Dhoop…, Anarkali -- you name it. Our actors were household names, and so were comedians like Moin Akhtar and Umar Sharif. Interestingly, for most Indians today, Pak TV programmes are only a fond 'memory' -- passed on by a previous generation or two. The reason, most agree, is the 'official' ban on Pak TV channels that has coincided with the mushrooming of a plethora of cable network channels available to people at nominal rates. While a Hum TV and an Indus have some (negligible) presence in Mumbai, and ARY's QTV finds favour in the Muslim majority areas in the country, most Indian telly viewers remain oblivious to what Pakistan's small screen looks like today, thanks to the state policy.

Srinivas Rao, General Manager, Distribution, Lehren Entertainment Private Company, relates how the cable operators in Mumbra (a Mumbai suburb) are not allowed to carry even QTV "because of the sermonising nature of its content."

International news channel Al-Jazeera has also faced a ban on account of its (alleged) provocative material.

Cable operators in states with Muslim population such as Utter Pradesh occasionally -- albeit discreetly -- run Pakistani channels, since ETV, the only Urdu language channel, headquartered in Hyderabad, does not meet the demands of the locals. "Its programmes are mostly dubbed versions of Telugu and Hindi shows. They don't quite agree with the cultural milieu of the community," adds Srinivas.

Correspondingly, the Pakistan government has always been criticised by certain quarters demanding all Indian content on television to be blocked. But the ban, says an official at PEMRA, requesting anonymity, "is a farce.

"That's a wrong notion," he explains, "It's just that only those foreign channels are permitted that have got the landing rights. From 1999 onwards, Pemra has followed this policy."

Geo fares better. It's a "very popular brand in India", according to Srinivas, and a lot of its footage and content is shared by the Indian broadcasters for their news channels. Ditto for Express TV.

There are some 350 TV channels on show in India. They can be divided into three categories: a)terrestrial, b)free to air, and c)subscription-based channels. The terrestrial are those the cable operators are bound to carry -- such as the state-owned network. The rest are either free-to-air or subscription-based channels, both national and international. Interestingly, a cable operator can only carry about 100 channels at a time, due to technical constraints and bandwidth issues. The frontline entertainment channels are Star Plus, Sony and Zee TV. The second tier is composed of news channels like NDTV, Aaj Tak and Star News. Lastly, there are the religion-based channels such as Surya, God TV and Miracle TV."

Srinivas claims there is no public demand for Pakistan TV channels in the given cluster.

Komal Nahta, leading Indian film critic and editor of the weekly, Film Information, and its web portal, thefilmstreetjournal.com, puts it more candidly: "People today have got a lot of choice. Come to think of it, we have at least 50 popular shows on air every day on different TV channels. It's a completely different world."

Saurabh Kanwar, Vice President, Content & Communication, Channel V, adds, "If the content is good, there will always be a place for it in the mainstream; unless, of course, there are legal issues involved."

Earler, the airing of PTV, Geo, ARY and Aaj News were banned in Srinagar, Kashmir, following directives from the information and broadcasting ministry.

Komal says Pakistani channels were always a no-no, and it is wrong to assume that the situation was any different prior to 26/11.

For its part, Pakistan saw a (temporary) period of ban on Indian channels in Dec 2001 when the two neighbouring countries came to the brink of a war. That the cable operators had to give in to immense pressure from the local subscribers -- chiefly the housewives, hooked on the myriad saas-bahu soaps -- is another story.

The popular belief is that the black-out is always "on a reciprocal basis".

23-year-old Natasha Sahgal, a student of Masters in English Literature at Mumbai University, says she's not sure what is the state policy, "But I know for a fact that Pakistani serials are my grandparents' favourite. I presume they'd still be popular in the north, among those who speak Punjabi. But I don't think they get them now with the dish TV."

India's young generation, Natasha adds, is fed on MTV and American shows. While the elderly lot, especially in urban areas, is "hooked on the many soaps on Indian channels".

Clearly, times have changed. The days of the 'aerial' -- a flat structure of aluminium wires mounted on the rooftop -- are over. It used to be very simple. With one-odd TV channel on either side of the Indo-Pak border, the viewers would commonly switch between Pakistan Television (PTV) and Doordarshan (alias DD). Also, there was no concept -- locally, at least -- of a 'repeat telecast' or a 24-hour, hybrid or dedicated channel. For Lahorites, Sunday evenings would be a popular feast on the only-colour cinema viewing in the entire week, telecast live from Delhi -- via Amritsar studios. Likewise, PTV's Lahore centre would famously beam its glorious shows into the neighbouring cities of East Punjab.

In came the dish antenna and things began to change -- dramatically. From being an 'elitist thing', the parabolic satellite vehicle gradually made inroads into the homes of the common masses, with its groovy mix of (the initially) free-to-air, entertainment and news channels available at the mere tilt of an LNB. The private broadcaster was having the time of his life.

In the subcontinent, the old order had been replaced. India, with its Zees and Stars and Sonys that catered basically for the Bollywood-crazed nations, now ruled the roost. Pakistan's private satellite TV channels were rather slow to come up.

According to some recent reports, the Obama administration is planning to broaden the drone attacks to Balochistan unless Pakistan manages to reduce the incursion of Taliban militants. The US concern obviously being that the terrorist threats its forces face in Afghanistan have their roots in the Pakistani soil. It has already conducted over 105 drone and missile attacks in parts of NWFP killing more than 600 people. And now it has indicated launching drone attacks in Balochistan, where Baloch nationalist forces are in confrontation with the state struggling for their rights.

These nationalist forces have expressed their displeasure on the possible drone strikes. Mir Tahir Bizenjo, central secretary general National Party, tells TNS "the nationalist forces would oppose wholeheartedly the drone attacks in Balochistan. The Taliban would gain strength instead of diminishing if US conducts these attacks, like in NWFP."

The people of the province question the wisdom behind such statements when there is no obvious presence of Taliban. They want to know the reaction of the elected government if such attacks actually carried out. The US believes the Taliban/al-Qaeda militants have permeated the province, particularly the Pashtoon-dominated areas, otherwise believed to be the most peaceful part of the province.

Balochistan is ethnically divided with Balochs and Pashtoon being the major ethnic groups. The province has considerable number of settlers who have migrated from different provinces or from India after partition. In the wake of the Soviet invasion in 1979, more than two million Afghan refugees entered Balochistan. Majority of the Afghan refugees are Pashtoons. They also include Uzbek, Tajik and Hazara population.

The growing instability in Afghanistan means more influx of refugees in Balochistan. The migration ratio during the Taliban period (1995-2001) was minimal, with considerable security at the western borders because the previous government supported Taliban. The latest phase of migration to Balochistan was witnessed in the post-9/11 US attacks on Afghanistan against Taliban. The US involvement in Afghanistan in the following years caused insecurity in Balochistan as the frontline province. Refugees from Kandahar, which borders with Balochistan, considered its Pashtoon belt a safe sanctuary.

"The rapid enhancement of drugs and weapons' supply from across the border was another destabilising factor in Balochistan," says Dr Mansoor Akbar Kundi, head of Political Science Department, University of Balochistan. "Despite all these instability factors, Balochistan remained peaceful due to three major reasons: It did not have foreign Taliban elements and during the Afghan Jehad, unlike NWFP, it had one training camp with inadequate training and operation hit facilities; It is sparsely populated with strong tribal division where outsiders seem conspicuous and the tribals discouraged the Taliban-brand militancy; third, unlike NWFP, there was no action against Taliban in Balochistan."

The politico-religious parties equally condemn the US broadening the missile strikes on Balochistan. The Balochistan Assembly has already adopted a joint resolution against the possible drone attacks in the province. The resolution urges the provincial government to approach the federal government to condemn the US intention in this regard. The resolution strongly condemned the presence of US bases in Balochistan, besides criticizing the US and NATO forces drone attacks in tribal areas. The legislators have demanded of the federal government to fulfil its responsibilities. Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Muhammad Aslam Raisani says his government will approach the UN over the issue as there are no Taliban militants in the province except those students who are studying in religious schools. "The term Taliban is derived from those who study in religious schools, not militant Taliban," he is reported to have said.

It is generally believed that there would be more negative reaction against the US and the West in the case of such attacks. "This is why we have given very strict instructions to our troops in Afghanistan to avoid civilian collateral damage at all costs. And of course these strikes fuel anti-western and anti-US feelings," says French Ambassador to Pakistan Daniel Jouanneau while talking to TNS.

The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) has kicked off its protest and mass contact campaign in the province. Wearing black and white turbans, the leadership of JUI-F leadership in a recent protest rally in Quetta vowed to resist the drone strikes and respond befittingly.

There is indeed the fear that Balochistan, the last option in Pakistan for the logistic support and supply line for NATO forces in Afghanistan, may be disconnected like NFWP.

If you take up the ordinary Pakistani newspaper on a common day, your first impression would be that we are amongst the most important countries in the world. The headline invariably shows the American president fretting over some aspect of our policy, showing his concern over what we are up to and issuing instructions or sounding a warning. This is followed by something from the Secretary of State holding forth on some other aspect of what is going on here, to be followed in turn by some admiral or the President's special envoy commenting on what we are up to. There is also comment by the EU and anyone else that matters.

By the time you get to page three your opinion is turned on its head and you think "no matter what anyone else might think of us, we don't give a damn." On the home front, the main thing is that there is a running battle going on between the government of the Punjab and the sellers of bread. These are the people who cook unleavened bread and sell it, and neither party is concerned what the American president thinks of it.

The point at issue is that the government is determined to see that an ordinary roti is available at Rs2 per roti, which is a pretty reasonable price for it, but the sellers are used to selling it at anything from that to ten times as much. The rum thing is that basically the government is going about it the right way. They have promised subsidised rates of flour to the tandoors if they sell it at Rs2.

That does not affect the fact that apart from these specified places everyone else like ordinary restaurants are free to charge any price they like for their roti. I guess it is too much to expect a tandoor to be selling their product at two rupees while the gut next door is selling his at five times the price. The result is that every other day the tandoors rebel and either ask for more subsidised rate for their flour, or concessions in their gas rates, or something!

The result is either a new set of threats from the government, or new instructions to the police to be even stricter in their checking, or they simply catch a few tandoors selling at a higher price and bung them in. This calls for a new set of threats from the tandoors offering to call the whole thing off. I wonder what president Obama, Hillary Clinton or EU thinks!

Nawaz Sharif has spoken against the rise of the Taliban in the wake of the Swat peace deal in recent days. We are seeing interesting transformative trends in the

PML-N vis-à-vis its policy on the Taliban. Until recently, his near silence was interpreted as the party's softness for Talibanisation. He has been an advocate of negotiations with the Taliban and hence his party's assent to the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation in the parliament. With the singular exception of Ayaz Amir, none of the PML-N member opposed the bill.

His strategy may have been influenced by the Sharifs' closeness to Saudi Arabia and his past conservative ideology. The party also stirs anxiety for pushing the policy of islamisation and the fifteenth amendment in the past.

It is widely believed that there has been some sort of an engagement of the US and other western powers with the PML-N. It would be interesting to watch how sustained and deep this shift on the Taliban is.

In recent years, though, the PML-N has gone on to become an establishment-averse party that reaches out to the people and sails with the popular mood. It has shrewdly occupied areas of social justice and constitutionalism abdicated by the PPP. This is most evident in the party's evolving stance on civil-military relationship. The party's learning curve on this fundamental question in Pakistani politics is largely attributable to the military coup of 1999 which stopped the deepening of political process -- not for the first time in the country's history. The 1999 coup dislodged Nawaz Sharif's government that carried the weight of a 'heavy mandate.'

For a party that grew up in the womb of General Ziaul Haq's dictatorship, this was a bolt from the blue. Since that realisation, the party has steadily moved away from the military's tutelage. In the years that attended the Sharifs in exile, the principal contradiction of democracy and the military mind cohabiting came to be glaringly exposed. This tension, exacerbated by the undiluted dictatorship of General Musharraf, began to shape the party's growing pro-people pronouncements. On this issue, the PML-N surpassed the PPP, the historically populist and anti-establishment party.

The PML-N's growing opposition to General Musharraf was in tune with popular disenchantment with the general's rule. Sensing popular revulsion against the military regime, the party set out to challenge the regime on the streets. The party's new-found strident stand on the constitutionality of the Musharraf regime came to grief when Sharifs' efforts to return to the country were blocked. Earlier, the party's mobilisation capacity was fatally exposed when few party faithfuls took to the streets to protest Sharif's deportation. From then on a serious question mark began to gather over the party's future in agitational and mobilisational politics.

Here the PML-N wrestled with the dilemma of aligning its anti-Musharraf stance with its mobilisation capacity. Against this backdrop, the sacking of Iftikhar Chaudhry provided the PML-N a chance to not only school itself in the art of protest politics but also to move away from its military-tainted origins. On the way, the party also enhanced its social mobilisation skills and deepened its engagement with the civil society. These developments were to exercise far-reaching influence on the party's ideology and its resultant policy shifts.

Here again the PML-N's strategy differed markedly from the PPP. Whereas the PPP was favourably disposed towards General Musharraf if the possibility of compromise was dangled, the PML-N stuck to single-minded agenda of the ouster of General Musharraf and the restoration of judges. Similarly, the PML-N threw itself fully behind the Lawyer's Movement while the PPP kept adjusting its tunes according to the signals emanating from the presidency. Again the PML-N's clarity on the Lawyer's Movement and the widely despised Musharraf rule were to procure it huge rewards in electoral terms. This was to have a decisive influence on its policy as well.

In the Feb 2008 elections, the PML-N scored major electoral gains with pro-Musharraf party resoundingly thrashed. In the first flush of democratic revival, the party joined the coalition government, with the aim of restoring the chief justice and advancing the understanding embodied in the charter of democracy. With the PPP blowing hot and cold over the deal, the popularity graph of the PPP continued to dip. This was a clever and clear-headed strategy on the part of the PML-N to reinsert itself into the space created by the PPP. The party ruled in the Punjab province, while keeping its covenant with the Lawyer's Movement and rule of law. The PPP's prevarication on the issue of the judges' restoration further tainted its image. The stage was thus set for the last rites of passage to its agitational and popular character.

With the PPP flip-flopping on the judges' issue, the PML-N parted ways with the PPP and joined the opposition. The widespread perception of the PPP being a main stumbling block in the restoration of the judges was solidified with the imposition of the governor's rule. The hasty step of removing Shahbaz Sharif through legal means set the ball of the PML-N juggernaut of long march rolling which has remade the PML-N into a mainstream party.

The Sharif brothers went into an opposition mode, rousing the people to action, hectoring the PPP administration for its complicity in the perpetuation of discredited Musharraf legacy.

For the first time in its history, the PML-N was mobilising people for oppositional politics. Also back in play was the poetry of Habib Jalib recited by Shahbaz Sharif. This looked like a classic rerun of the right appropriating the left's rhetoric. In some ways, when the left or social democratic parties are absent from the scene, the adoption of these ideas by the PML-N is a clever political strategy. More significantly, Nawaz Sharif's decision to come out of his house and seize the moment has put him firmly at the heart of the Pakistani politics, with Asif Zardari on the back foot. The successful conclusion of the long march in favour of Nawaz Sharif and his image as the national leader has also lifted the fortunes of the party.

Dr Arif Azad is a policy analyst based in Islamabad.

arif_azad6@hotmail.com

Aimen is a fourth grade student at one of Lahore's well-reputed English medium schools in Gulberg. Nowadays, her school can easily be mistaken for a fortress -- guarded by at least four armed security guards deployed at the main gate with policemen at the road on which the school is located. Bunkers of sandbags have been set up at the rooftop. School identity card is mandatory and every student is scanned at the gate while visitors and outsiders have to go through a 'security ordeal' before entering the premises.

The situation is no different at majority of English-medium schools in the major cities of the country. The security at these schools and educational institutions reflect how Taliban have managed to spread fear and terror in the society. Apparently, these schools are being told to wind up the progressive education agenda or face consequences.

The inhuman killing of over a dozen children in Lower Dir on April 25 by a toy bomb has upsized this maddening threat of targeting schools and children. In September 2008 more than 300 school children were abducted by the militants at a government school in Upper Dir and later rescued after exchange of fire between residents and militants.

Threats to schools have become more pronounced since the beginning of 2008. In the last couple of months a pattern has been observed in these threats, which many people believe are acts of local Islamic 'lunatics' or some students. But the gravity behind these threats cannot be ignored. The statements of federal government and directions of cities' administrations to schools are a proof.

The situation worsened in late 2008 when militants ordered to close down over 300 girls' schools of Swat valley. Taliban had also threatened to kill the girl students if they went to classes after Jan 15. In April this year the law enforcement agencies evacuated and closed down private and government institutions for three days all over Sialkot district in Punjab while responding to some reports of terrorists having entered Sialkot. Last week Kinnaird College administration banned western attire like jeans in the college. Some reports say this has been done in the wake of some threats.

A few week back Interior Minister Rehman Malik apparently denied threats to schools asserting that "some private schools have expressed their apprehensions. Arrangements for their security have already been made all over Punjab as well as in Islamabad."

"Yes, there have been threats. Parents are afraid. No one wants to send his child to school in this situation," a director of one of the reputed chain of school system told TNS, requesting anonymity. She said that Rehman Malik held a meeting in Lahore with private schools administration asking them to beef up security without mentioning any specific threat. The lady also said that some parents have stopped sending their children to schools in the wake of this situation.

Similar threats were received by some co-education institutions in Karachi especially those affiliated with foreign schools or universities. It was also reported that the vice chancellor of a university in Karachi received phone calls by intelligence agencies regarding the threats by Taliban.

In March 2009, all schools of Islamabad remain closed for a couple of days in the wake of possible militant attacks on. "According to some of my reports the co-educational schools in South Punjab districts like Multan, Layyah, Muzaffargarh have been receiving letters from claimed local Taliban urging the schools to switch to Islamic way of life instead of "westernising students," Salman Abid, researcher and regional director of Strengthening participatory Organisation (SPO), told TNS.

"Threatening educational institutions especially schools is an effective strategy to create panic and spread terror," said a teacher of a missionary school in Lahore. "They think that we are "westernised" and "elite" and hence should be killed."

The number of bomb hoaxes increased in the first quarter of 2008 when institutions like Lahore's National College of Arts and the Punjab University College of Art and Design were threatened. The outer structure of the PU school still looks like an army bunker with a line of sandbags.

"A number of faculty and students' meetings have been held urging precautionary measures," a senior teacher of NCA told TNS. "The students ID cards are a must. Non students are not allowed to visit the campus and even NCA library, previously open to outsiders, has now been closed to them." Moreover, he said, the name of the college has been removed from the college buses and students' trips and tours have been banned. He thinks "foolproof security is impossible."

Rubina Saigol, educationist, researcher and former Country Director ActionAid said that these threats are aimed at damaging co-education. She said that "state is duty bound to take action because Taliban are criminals and they should be dealt with an iron hand," she urged. Rubina thinks that media should not portray Taliban as heroes or spread panic but, instead, they should plead for education and women rights.

Punjab Home Department has submitted a report to the Punjab Police warning it of possible terrorist attacks on co-education institutions in Lahore. Punjab Home Secretary Nadeem Hassan Asif told TNS that these directions to schools were sent after assessing the current situation and vulnerability of schools.

The debates whether these threats are real or just a tactic of psychological warfare are also going around. "This might be psychological warfare but this is up to media how it exposes it, which, unfortunately, does not seem positive yet," said the director of the reputed chain of schools in Pakistan. "Media should avoid sensationalism."

vaqargillani@gmail.com

As I read somewhere this past week, when is a peace deal not a peace deal? Answer: when it's signed in Pakistan between the government and the Taliban? While coherence and consistency is needed to tackle this decidedly existential threat to the country, what do we have? We have an operation currently underway in Dir and, if news reports are to be believed, another being planned in Buner.

In the case of Buner, the government's response has been kind of confusing. For starters, it did nothing when hundreds of Taliban fighters shifted from neighbouring Swat district to Buner and took over the entire district after killing several civilians in a fire fight with a local lashkar raised to check Taliban's entry into the district. They took control of a popular local shrine and this understandably caused much alarm because people know what the Taliban do with Sufi shrines normally. However, quite diabolically they then said that they would stay around the shrine and help protect it.

In the meantime, the Taliban went around rampaging private property, looting and plundering from several houses of the locals who thought it more advisable to flee the district. They stole several cars and jeeps from local NGO offices and also, according to several reports, stole food from a World Food Programme depot (used to provide food support to Afghan refugees) and several NGO stores and even robbed people of mobile phones on the pretext that they contained images of women and had music ring tones.

Eventually, when the government did wake up to this brazen challenge to its writ, several senior officials started issuing nonsensical statements. First and foremost among them was the commissioner of Malakand division who was clearly hand-in-glove (and he is in fact hand-in-glove with them, it appears now) with the militants and who even said something as inappropriate as that the Taliban were there at the request of the local population. Surely, he should have known that the local population in the past -- and this time as well -- has organised lashkars to resist the advance of the Taliban and that they failed this time only because the government and the military were not interested in stopping this advance. Although the gentleman in question has now thankfully been transferred out, the question is why the ANP government posted him to Malakand in the first place.

Had both the government and the military responded promptly and with vigour to the advancing Taliban in Buner, we wouldn't have a situation like this where the edicts of the Taliban are very much in force. Schools are closed; civic life has vanished, women are afraid to leave their homes, and where the barbarism and brutality that so heavily impacted personal liberties and freedoms are very much in place still.

This is because the people are afraid. They know that the Swat Taliban have left behind local Buneri Taliban, who will not brook a wink in carrying out the barbaric punishments against the local population. The people of Buner are doubly afraid because, so far, the government hasn't come out in their support at all and has miserably failed in fulfilling its constitutional duty of providing security of life and property to citizens.

Also, despite the withdrawal of the Taliban back to their swat, the ransacked homes have not been returned to their owners. It is also not clear whether the vehicles they stole from the locals and from NGO offices have been returned to their rightful owners. In all likelihood, they haven't and are probably being used to transport some of those who have withdrawn to Swat to ferry them there.

While all this has been happening, the FC has been called out in Dir and is fighting the militants there. That is a good first step but for some reason the interior minister has said on record that the Dir action is in no way related to the Swat situation. The obvious question is, why not? Dir and Swat are neighbouring districts and any plan to contain the Taliban has to deal with their presence in both districts. Or is the interior minister implying that the idea is to eject the militants from Dir, and perhaps Buner, to Swat? And then the question arises that what did the poor people of Swat do to deserve being ruled over by such brutal beasts?

Also, consider the initial decision to send a convoy of military trucks to Mingora -- without any air support -- into an area where they could be (and were) easily surrounded by the enemy. The result was that the convoy had to eventually return. And this presents a most worrying picture as far as the government's and military's writ is concerned -- that a convoy of military trucks cannot travel in a settled district and is made to turn back because of threats by the Taliban.

Now (this piece was written on April 28-29), some kind of paramilitary operation seems to be underway in Buner and Dir. Thousands of people have fled their homes, fearing that a Swat-like situation will develop. Of course, this could have been avoided if the government and the military had initially taken steps to counter the influx of Taliban into Buner, and prevented them to take control of a shrine and establish their district 'headquarters' and had prevented them from recruiting local people over to their side.

The writer is Editorial Pages Editor of The News. Email: omarq@cyber.net.pk