Danger in Dir

The situation in Dir remains tense, three days after a clash between militants and police resulted in five deaths. The police had been attempting to rescue a bank officer kidnapped by the militants. The district police officer and a former nazim were among those killed. There is, as yet, no clue as to the safety of the bank official; we do not know if he is dead or alive.

There are some especially dangerous dimensions to this situation. Reports from Lower Dir, a district that lies adjacent to Swat, say there has been a distinct increase in militant activity in the area since the peace deal was reached in Swat. The implication is that militants from Swat may have now drifted into Dir, seeking new territory to conquer in their quest to take control of all they can. The fact that the leader of the TNSM, Sufi Mohammad, belongs to Dir adds to the risks. He has been present in the area for some days but insists this is merely a recreational visit. It is though not difficult to imagine a situation in which militants at their meetings contemplate repeating the tale of their conquest in Swat in other tracts of NWFP. After all they have emerged victorious in Swat, forcing the authorities to bow down to them. It can only be expected that they will, buoyed by this triumph, be eager to repeat the experiment elsewhere.

People in Dir have, in the past, made a valiant effort to push militants out of their villages and towns. The attacks on schools for girls in Dir, apparently carried out by militants from Swat, have been greeted with anger by communities who had struggled hard to bring education to their remote district. The situation unfolding now has given rise to similar sentiments. A strike to protest the kidnapping of the bank official has been held across upper and lower Dir. But the latest sequence of events goes only to show how dark the shadows of militancy that hang over Dir really are. It seems quite clear that the forces that rampaged through Swat, creating terror and fear as they enforced their arcane version of Islam, are now eager to do the same in Dir. It is time the provincial government roused itself from its slumber, gave up its pretence that all is well in Swat and began a real effort to tackle the militants who have in Dir once more proved just how deadly they can be.