Heart  To Heart

The sun is back in the valley

         By Zulfiqar Gul                  

My hometown Barikot was a beautiful part of the stunning Swat Valley. It was around February this year that we had started hearing news about some militants establishing their base close to our place in Barikot and also witnessed their suspicious activities. Unfortunately, at that time, the role of our security forces was very dubious. Once, while coming back from Mingora to my hometown, I saw the security forces patrolling Barikot’s markets before suddenly disappearing. The same night, the militants broke into Barikot for the first time. But nobody bothered to take decisive action against the militants who were spreading their wings in the area. Maybe it was because our soldiers did not have clear-cut orders from Islamabad, where a judiciary issue was looming over the government’s head.

After a while, on my way to Mingora, I saw the debris that used to be Qambar High School, which had been blown up by the fanatics, depriving hundreds of students of acquiring education. We were told by our elders not to speak against those fanatics in public places, for they would chop our head off. Every morning we had to bear the brutal news that somebody had been slaughtered the night before. The fanatical mullahs would proudly announce on FM radio about how many people they had slaughtered. Our policies during the 1980s and 1990s to form a proxy government in Afghanistan and causing harm to India in Kashmir, using private militant groups, instilling them with religious ideologies had backfired quite badly, ruining the peace of our own country, causing a threat to its very existence.

Due to the ever declining state of peace in the valley, I finally left Swat for Islamabad where I got myself a job in a call centre. Everyday I used to pick up the newspaper hoping to see something positive about Swat‘s situation, but in vain.

In March, the controversial Shariah Act was passed by the National Assembly. The Act only helped in strengthening the militants; they moved into the adjacent Buner district. Then, in the month of April, the news of a teenage girl being flogged by fanatics for going out with her father-in-law hit the airwaves. I watched that bone chilling video and it left me broken. 

In the second week of April, I went back to Swat to spend my holidays. During my brief stay there, I found out that the entire valley was taken over by the militants, who roamed the roads with heavy weapons in their hands. In the third week of April, an operation was launched against the militants in Buner. Fighter jets and gunship helicopters shelled the mountains of Karakar, which separated Swat from Buner. By that time, the militants had taken over Mingora city as well. My family used to tell me on the phone that the operation could be extended to the Swat Valley.

By the first week of May, the militants had begun to openly challenge the government’s writ by occupying government offices in Mingora. This audacious move finally awoke Islamabad from slumber and in the first week of May, the operation was extended to Swat. Mingora was pounded heavily by fighter jets and gunship choppers, leaving many people trapped. The locals started fleeing the area in large numbers; however, due to lack of transport, they had to cover miles on foot. Barikot, my hometown, which had been safe before, came under fire for the first time when numerous gunship helicopters started shelling militant’s hideouts. This forced my family to flee to a relative’s place in Peshawar, while two of my brothers opted to stay back in Barikot. This was to make sure that our place was not occupied by the militants, which could result in security forces attacking our only shelter, leaving us homeless forever.

During that time, those brutal militants blew up the Fazaldad Colony Primary School where one of my brothers was a teacher. A few days later, an Army convoy was ambushed at the outskirts of Barikot, injuring four soldiers. The fight lasted for five long hours. Once, my brothers also became a target of firing from the FC soldiers. Luckily, they escaped that deadly fire, but that accident forced my elder brother to say goodbye to Barikot, but my younger brother refused to leave the place.  

Swat had been without electricity, telephone and mobile services for almost one and a half month, so we were clueless about my brother’s well being in Barikot. In the last week of May, the security forces launched a decisive ground operation against the militants. It took them a few weeks to get the area cleared of the militants. Now their next target was Koza Bandai (downtown), Bara Bandai (uptown) and Charbagh.

On the 21st of June, my brother called us from Swat. We heard his voice after so many weeks. He was jubilant as Pakistan had won the Twenty20 World Cup. This victory worked as a tonic for the IDPs who had something to be happy about.

On 15th of July, we left for Swat, after the government deemed the Valley safe and secure. We reached Landake, the entering point of Swat, on August 13. The gunship helicopters were hovering over our heads. When we reached Barikot, after four months, it was peaceful and calm, but the place seemed to have lost its innocence, having seen so much bloodshed.

On August 14, the people of the valley celebrated the Independence Day with full vigour. However, some isolated incidents here and there have established the fact that the war is far from over and we need to be persistent and alert to fight the enemy. Today, families are returning to their homes, businesses are flourishing and markets are once again full of shoppers.

Yes, we can see that the sun is back in the valley…