NWFP is being threatened by extremists and over the past few months, Taliban have quadrupled with their rigid philosophy spilling over into settled areas. Initially, Talibanisation was limited to tribal areas, but its spillover to settled areas began with threatening letters to barbers warning them against shaving beards, and to CD shop owners asking them to pack up. The threatening letters were followed by bomb blasts across the province. Militancy spread in NWFPÂ’s southern districts, including Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu and Lakki Marwat, where local Taliban emerged and virtually paralysed the government machinery. Peshawar police chief Malik Saad and 16 others died in a suicide attack on January 28, 2007, while another suicide attack on Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao in his hometown, Charsadda on 28 April, left more than 30 people dead and another suicide attack at an Afghan hotel in Peshawar on May 15, killed 25 people. In addition to the attacks on government officials including DIG Bannu Abid Ali, Pakistan PeopleÂ’s Party leader Syed Qamar Abbas, Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd General Manger Syed Mohammad Hassnain, NWFP Information Department Director Syed Mehdi Hussain, and attack on the house of Khyber Agency political agent in the Tank district left 13 people dead. The government has yet to trace those involved in the attacks. South and North Waziristan, Bajaur and Kurrum agencies were already volatile, but now Khyber Agency adjacent to Peshawar has also been caught in the turmoil, as two warring religious outfits are striving to implement their own versions of Islam in the conservative tribal agency. The feud, which started nearly 18 months ago, has so far claimed nearly 200 lives in Khyber Agency and it does not show any chances of subsiding.
The government used the military intervention to rein in tribal militants and, at the same time, it engaged tribal people in dialogue. As a result, several peace accords were signed, but the situation was not bought under control. The Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA)-led NWFP government is critical of the federal governmentÂ’s strategy from the beginning and when bomb blasts and other Taliban activities surged in the province, it publicly blamed the federal agencies for the incidents, while the federal government accused the provincial government of failing to control law and order.
The NWFP government says that its first four-year rule was peaceful, but that the recent incidents of violence across NWFP are “a conspiracy” against the provincial government. It also termed the events a direct response to the federal government’s actions in FATA. However, people are still helpless in the face of growing lawlessness.
So far no one has been arrested for lawlessness in the province, and there is an impression that the ‘long hand’ of the law has been restrained and terrorists and miscreants are at liberty to twist it the way they need and want. People think both the federal and provincial governments have relinquished their duties and have engaged in a blame game.