PESHAWAR, Pakistan: “I have resigned. I will never go to my job as I don’t want my parents to be sent my body,” said a woman in a northwest Pakistan district from which the Taleban claimed to have withdrawn.
The woman, who gave her name only as Hafsa, said she worked for a charity until the Taleban advanced into Buner, just 100 km from Islamabad, from the neighboring district of Swat. Fear and uncertainty reigned in Buner yesterday despite what the hard-line movement trumpeted as a withdrawal to Swat — just the other side of the mountains — to shore up a deal to apply the Shariah there.
“People are scared,” said local resident Nisar Khan. “We used to see women going to their offices before the Taleban arrived in the area, but today they did not go to their jobs,” he added.
“Shops are open and there are no signs of armed Taleban patrolling streets in Buner but people face uncertainty and fear that they may come back,” Khan said.
People were reluctant to go to markets and other public places. Women stayed away from their workplaces and girl students stayed at home the morning after the pullback, witnesses said.
The government deployed up to 300 extra paramilitary police to secure Buner but Taleban elements were still present, local police said. “They have gone, but left their germs here,” Abdul Rasheed Khan, the district’s top police officer, said. “Now we have about 200 local Taleban who can be seen on roadsides.”
Jam Sher Khan, who works for a local nongovernmental organization, said the Taleban had forcibly occupied his office in Buner. “Now they have left but our office is still locked and we will not resume duty until authorities provide us security,” he said.
Yesterday, Taleban gunmen stopped an army convoy from entering their valley stronghold, casting a US-criticized peace deal back into doubt. About 50 militants blocked the main road leading into Swat, halting a column of six army trucks and two jeeps, Taleban spokesman Muslim Khan said.
The vehicles were carrying extra troops as well as supplies, in violation of the peace accord, Khan said by telephone.
Meanwhile, a bomb killed 12 children yesterday in a village west of Swat. “The children had found the bomb outside a girls’ primary school in Luqman Banda village of Lower Dir town,” a local police officer said. The victims included seven boys and five girls ranging between the ages of five and 13 years, said officer Said Zaman.
