PESHAWAR: There are indications that some militants have shifted their activities from Swat to the adjoining Dir Lower and Dir Upper districts. The Maulana Fazlullah-led Taliban militants haven’t fully stopped their activities in the restive Swat district despite declaring a permanent ceasefire. The guarantor of the Swat peace deal, Maulana Sufi Muhammad and his Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) organization, have failed to criticise the militants for violating the ceasefire and kidnapping government officials, attacking security forces, carrying out target killings and undertaking armed patrolling in parts of the valley. Instead, the TNSM has been blaming the government, which is already facing criticism for capitulating to the militants. On Wednesday, a bridge in Chamtalai, Swat, was damaged with explosives in an unprovoked act blamed on the militants. Bullet-riddled bodies are still being found at roadsides or in fields and kidnappings haven’t stopped. The government and the security forces have shown patience despite the provocations by the militants. Maulana Sufi Muhammad managed to get concessions for the militants, but he is finding it difficult to persuade the Taliban to abide by the peace accord. The militants are defying him as they know he doesn’t have the power to tackle them. Maulana Fazlullah-led militants’ activities in the valley are not new or a matter of surprise, but they have been trying rigorously to extend their sphere of influence to the peaceful areas. A large number of heavily armed men attacked the Malakand University in Chakdara town of Lower Dir district and killed four cops and a guard. The incident seems unprovoked, as it was not involved in any dispute with the militants. Sources claimed that militants who were 40 to 60 in number wanted to occupy the varsity. Malakand Commissioner Syed Muhammad Javed was reported to have said that the attackers were not Taliban, but members of a criminal gang. However, locals are not ready to believe his assertion and say that the saboteurs were not ordinary criminals because they were equipped with rockets and other sophisticated weapons. They posed a question as to why a criminal gang would attack an educational institute. Kidnappings in this district have also been on a constant rise. The militants recently also attacked a police post in Sharmai area of Upper Dir with rockets and rifles. Both the attacks were carried out the same day. These incidents of violence in Upper and Lower Dir districts drew concern from the people who believed that whenever peace deal was signed in Swat valley, the militants started their activities in Dir Upper and Lower districts. When a peace agreement between the NWFP government and militants was signed on May 21, 2008, the militants had started blowing up and torching schools across Dir. Seven to 10 schools, most of them of girls, were destroyed in 2008 during the “peace time.” Now that there is again peace agreement in Swat, the militants shifted their focus to the two districts. However, it may be mentioned that the present peace agreement is for the whole of Malakand division — Upper Dir, Lower Dir, Chitral, Buner, Shangla, Malakand and Swat — as Nizam-e-Adl which led to the deal has been enforced in the entire Malakand region and Kohistan district of Hazara division. The militants are bound not to launch attack anywhere in the region. When asked at the time of the announcement of the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation about the possible regrouping of the militants during the truce, NWFP Chief Minister Ameer Haidar Hoti had said they would keep a close eye on them. Since the regrouping of militants in Swat is now an open secret, other peaceful districts are also slipping from the hand of the government.
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