Mick Hartley

Acid attacks on girls; banning female education and burning down schools; and now…

On the heels of their crusade against girls going to schools, the Taliban have now issued new dictum in the areas under their sway asking parents of the grown up daughters to marry them to militants or "face dire consequences".

This new force-marriage campaign is being run in most of the areas in the Pakistan's troubled NWFP through regular announcements made in mosques to congregations.

Such instances have come to light recently through some of the affected women daring to go to authorities for justice rather than meekly surrender to the militants’ dictates.

Salma, who teaches in a primary school in Peshawar, told the Dawn newspaper that Taliban have told families to declare in mosques if they have unmarried girls so that their hand could be given in marriage, most probably to militants.

If they did not do so, the girls would be forcibly married off, the newspaper quoted the 30-year-old widow as saying.

She also said the Taliban in the Swat valley of NWFP have threatened women with dire punishment, if they are found outside their homes without identity cards and a male relative accompanying them.

Couples should also carry 'Nikah Nama' or marriage certificates with them when they venture out of home or they will be in trouble, she said.

"I have heard that Taliban have announced that if a girl above the age of seven is found outside her house, she would be slaughtered," Salma said.

And, from the Times:

Four months after a local militia stood up to the Taliban and threw them out of their village, killing six of them in the process, the Taliban wreaked their revenge. Last week they cold-bloodedly murdered 40 locals, many of them children, in a car bomb blast.

Shal Bandai, a remote settlement in the lawless North West Frontier province, about 175 miles north of Peshawar, was targeted because its citizens had dared to challenge the insurgents, who now control huge swathes of Pakistan in the tribal territories along the Afghan border….

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing. The following day Shah Durran, a Taliban commander in the neighbouring district of Swat, announced on his banned radio station: “We will even kill your children.”

Last week in Swat another Taliban commander declared a ban on girls’ education, saying it was unIslamic. The Taliban have burnt down more than 100 schools in the past year.

The militants, led by Maulana Fazlullah, who is nicknamed “Radio Mullah” for his seditious broadcasts, are trying to spread their insurgency from Swat into the neighbouring districts of Buner and Dir. […]

Fakhre Alam, a schoolteacher who is the head of the committee charged with the security of the village, said the locals had turned down a reward of 5m rupees (£44,000) from the Pakistani government after their clash with the Taliban.

The government had offered the villagers the money to buy more arms and ammunition, he said. “We don’t need money. We need peace and security. We asked the government to set up a college instead of sending more weapons to our young people.”

He complained that only 10 police officers had been sent to the village by the government. “Instead of defending us, we’re defending the policemen,” he said.

According to a local police officer, just 550 policemen patrol a population of 1m in Buner. “Fifty-five of the 550 policemen have already quit,” said the officer. In this climate of fear mothers have stopped sending their children to school. But the residents of Shal Bandai remain determined not to allow the Taliban to take over their village.

“We shall fight. This is our life and only we have a right to it. Who are they to dictate to us? We’re not going to give in,” said Alam.