The kind of terror the Taiban
unleashed in Swat during their rule is now beginning to come forward in its
entirety. Perhaps this is because terrorised people are finally finding the
courage to speak out about their ordeal, as they gain confidence that the reign
of militants in the valley is truly over.
Following the accounts of the public flogging of two other women — including
Chand Bibi, the young woman whose beating by bearded men was captured on camera
and shook the world — a third woman, Mairaj Bibi, has told of being beaten by
militants in 2008 in front of her father-in-law and eight year old son. An
attempt seems to have been made to force her to confess to illicit relations
with her father-in-law. Initial suggestions focus around the possibility of
family rivalry and revenge extracted by those who had power at the time.
This fits in with other accounts of Taliban rule. Far from being driven by any
kind of religious zeal, the militants seem to have been driven by a lust for
power and many of their worst atrocities seem to be a means to settle small
scores. The arming of thousands of young men by the Taliban offered them the
opportunity to do so with no one to stop them. The accounts coming forward, such
as those from Mairaj Bibi, appear to confirm this. There is no other way to
explain what happened to her. The phenomenon of the Taliban needs to be studied
in this light and exposed before people.
There is another aspect to all this. It is so far unclear if any of those
involved have been put on trial or penalised. This needs to happen.
Extra-judicial killings and other kinds of abuses we have heard of in Swat are
no answer. They only worsen matters. We need a fair process of justice so that
some of what went wrong in Swat can be undone.