Daily Times

Sir: This is in response to Shaukat Qadir’s article where he makes observations about the nature of the Swat deal and its consequences. (“The Swat deal is wrong”, Daily Times, February 28) I completely agree with Mr Qadir’s analysis. The deal in Swat is fundamentally flawed. The only thing that seems to have been agreed is that anti-state actors will be given the right to implement sharia in the region, without consideration for the laws of Pakistan or indeed without any consideration for the fact that sharia law is a much debated topic. The flag bearers of sharia in Swat are a small minority of self-proclaimed salvation peddlers who seek to restrict the right to interpret and define sharia to themselves.

The regulations that will be implemented in Swat will not give the population the freedom to live according to Islamic law, as proclaimed by Sufi Muhammad and Fazlullah. Rather, it will give a small violent minority the right to impose its personal belief system on the population by force, at the expense of the spiritual freedom of the Swati people. The government in this instance has not fought for the people, but has in fact sold them off to a band of ideological thugs.
The Taliban are no fitter to govern a population than any other band of marauding bandits, but unfortunately, it may take the utter destruction of Swat before people realise it.
HASSAN KILDE BAJWA
Lahore