By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS
Islamabad : Uneasy calm prevailed in Swat, a city in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), with heavy paramilitary forces parading in the area Saturday, a day after a six-hour military action against a militant group.
Maulana Fazalullah, leader of the Islamic Movement, is said to have fled the area but his more than 4,000 followers are present in the Imamdheri madrassa run by the movement.
Reports said the militants were discussing future strategy while the paramilitary forces were announcing in the streets that they were in Swat to ensure peace.
A handbill written in the local Pashto language was being distributed among the citizens. It said the paramilitary forces were in the area to ensure peace and no citizen would be harmed.
“We have mounted guns in the city but these are only against anti-state people and not against the citizens,” said the message requesting the citizens to return to their businesses and routine life.
It ended with a slogan: “Long Live Pakistan”.
Fazalullah, 30, is carrying forward his father-in-law Maulana Sufi Muhammad’s mission to enforce Islamic laws in the district. Sufi Muhammad started the campaign for Islamic laws in the mid-1990s and attracted thousands of followers.
In 1997 he was arrested after he threatened to march to Islamabad and is still in jail.
However, young Fazalullah has carried the mission forward using modern techniques and started preaching through illegal FM radio channels. Such channels had been suspended and their transmission jammed on several occasions but he used to start again using a different frequency.
On Friday he again announced on FM radio from an unknown place that he would continue this mission until Islamic laws were fully enforced in the area.
Four government officials were found killed in Swat city Friday with a message on their mutilated bodies that anyone working for the US would meet the same fate.
Some media reports said that these were security officials and their heads were chopped publicly by the militants but a spokesman for the armed forces denied that any of their men were killed or were missing.
Meanwhile, DPA reported that pro-Taliban militants continued to exchange sporadic gunfire Saturday with the security forces in NWFP.
“The situation is relatively calm today but intermittent gunfights continue,” police officer Nisar Ahmed told DPA from volatile Swat valley, some 160 km from NWFP capital Peshawar.
The clashes started Friday morning after government forces launched an operation against Fazlullah and his armed supporters following the killing of two dozen people in a suicide attack Thursday.
At least 15 people, including 10 security personnel and three militants, were killed in Friday’s gun battles, DawnNews television channel reported. More than a dozen people were also reported to be wounded. However, the authorities did not have any word on the casualties.
“We have been ordered to remain silent on casualty figures,” said Ahmed, who confirmed that the militants attacked a police station in the area.
“The insurgents retreated after the reinforcement of paramilitary troops,” he added.
Amid growing violence, hundreds of locals were moving to safer places.
The pro-Taliban cleric enjoys a lot of support among the masses in Swat, where he has ordered local women to wear the hijab, a traditional covering for their hair and necks.