MINGORA, Pakistan: A hard-line religious figure sought yesterday to persuade the Taleban to disarm under a pact with Pakistan’s government that has been criticized as giving in to Islamist militants ravaging the country’s northwest, a militant spokesman said.
Sufi Muhammad promised to use his influence to push the Taleban in the former tourist resort of Swat to stop fighting in exchange for a public vow by the government to impose Islamic law in the region, where a brutal insurgency has killed hundreds and sent up to one third of the area’s 1.5 million people fleeing.
The Taleban announced a 10-day cease-fire Sunday to support the initiative; the military responded by saying it would observe a truce. Critics say the deal risks ceding Swat to the Taleban and could embolden other militant groups challenging Pakistan’s shaky secular government.
But Pakistani officials say the deal is no concession, arguing that it addresses long-standing demands for a more efficient justice system in Swat and surrounding areas. A similar agreement in Swat last year collapsed in a few months and was blamed for giving insurgents time to regroup.
Muhammad met with the Swat Valley Taleban chief Maulana Fazlullah in an undisclosed location in the valley, Taleban spokesman Muslim Khan said. Fazlullah is the son-in-law of Muhammad, an Islamist chief once imprisoned for sending his followers to fight alongside the Taleban in Afghanistan but who has since publicly renounced violence.
“They are discussing how to ensure peace and how to ensure the provision of speedy justice” to the people, Khan said. Contacted late in the day, Khan said talks were still going on but had yet to bring any results. He did not say how long they would go on for.
Pakistani analysts say it is unclear how much influence the aging Muhammad has over Fazlullah. Many are skeptical the Taleban will disarm, specially since the Islamic law envisioned in the deal is far more limited than the hard-line version it espouses.
A Pakistani TV reporter who had been covering a peace march by Muhammad and his supporters was shot and killed. Authorities have not named any suspects in the killing of Musa Khan Khel, 28, and neither has his employer, Geo TV.
Hundreds of Pakistanis yesterday protested against the killing of the. Unknown gunmen shot Khel in the head and body Wednesday near the town of Matta in the former ski resort.
He was buried in Mingora, the main town of Swat, yesterday when around 600 people, mostly journalists, attended his funeral and angrily called on the government to bring his assassins to justice.
Khel had been reporting on Mohammad. There has been no claim of responsibility for his killing, the fourth of a journalist in Swat in the last year.
More than 500 people, including journalists and lawyers, marched from the press club to the governor’s house in the main northwest city of Peshawar, asking the government to protect media personnel.
More than 500 media workers staged a rally in the eastern city of Lahore. They too demanded protection for journalists. Members of several political parties, including the opposition parties of former cricket hero Imran Khan and ex-Premier Nawaz Sharif, also participated.
Witnesses said protests were also held in Karachi and Multan; in Bannu, Nowshera and Mansehra in the North West Frontier Province; Quetta, where a UN official was kidnapped this month; and Bajaur, North Waziristan and Khyber, in the country’s semi-autonomous tribal areas.
Khan condemned the killing, saying that whoever did it wanted to “derail the peace process.” Over the last 18 months, militants have battled security forces, beheaded political opponents and burned scores of girls’ schools in the Swat Valley.
