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Specter of the Taliban resurgence in Pakistan
The brutalities of the TTP rule have left deep imprints on the minds of the locals, who are not showing inordinate abhorrence toward the group.
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Pakistani security personnel get into position outside an Agriculture Training Institute after an attack by Taliban militants in Peshawar on Dec. 1, 2017.
(AFP/Abdul Majeed)
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Exactly 10 years ago, in October 2012, Malala Yousafzai, the Noble laureate who was 15 then, was shot in the head by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) for spearheading a courageous campaign for girls’ right to education in the Swat Valley. A similar incident was again repeated on Oct. 10 of this year near Mingora, the central town in Swat Valley, when an unknown assailant riding a motorcycle opened fire on a school van killing its driver and injuring two kids.
Though no terrorist organization has so far claimed responsibility for this incident, almost all local people suspect that the TTP was directly involved. That is why the school van attack has triggered the second round of massive protest campaign in the Swat region – people from all walks of life including political activists, lawyers, traders, teachers, students, laborers and farmers have taken to the streets in huge numbers to register their protest against the resurgence of militancy and terrorism in the Swat Valley, and other districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), the northern frontier province that shares a very long and porous border with Afghanistan.
The TTP, which is the Pakistani side-shoot of Afghanistan’s ruling Islamist Taliban has been behind all the terrorist activities in this area for the last many months. The TTP, a notorious extremist group also known as the Pakistani Taliban, designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations and the United States, used Swat as its basecamp until 2009, when a major military-led counterterrorism operation flushed the militants out and restored the government’s writ there.
The current wave of protests is a continuation of demonstrations that erupted in August this year when an alarming rise in targeted killings was witnessed in Tehsil Mata and Kabal of the Swat district, which was purportedly linked to the arrival of TTP activists there. Thousands of people staged massive rallies against the possible resurgence of the Pakistani Taliban in the Swat and Lower Dir districts.
