SWAT -AFP/UNS : A lawmaker was sipping tea with voters when his phone chirped to life — the Taliban were calling with a demand for “donations”.
“We hope you won’t disappoint,” read the chilling text from a shady go-between of the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Then, a second message pinged on-screen: “Refusal to provide financial support will make you a problem,” it warned.
“We believe a wise man will understand what we mean by that.”
After the Taliban takeover in neighbouring Afghanistan and emboldened by its sister movement’s success, TTP racketeering has infested areas along the border with Pakistan, locals say.
‘Threatening calls’ from Afghan cell numbers ask influentials for ‘donations’; ominous messages warn of impending ‘days of cruelty’
Since July, the provincial lawmaker — who asked to remain anonymous —has been cowed into sending the TTP sums totalling Rs1.2 million rupees.
“Those who don’t pay have to face the consequences. Sometimes they throw a grenade at their door. Sometimes they shoot,” he said.
“Most of the elites pay the extortion money. Some pay more, some pay less. But nobody talks about it. Everyone is scared for their life.”
Open shelter
The TTP share lineage with the Afghan Taliban, but were most potent from 2007 to 2009, when they overran Swat.
The military came down hard on them in 2014, after a brazen attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, which killed nearly 150 people, mostly pupils.
The TTP were largely routed, their fighters fleeing to Afghanistan where they were hunted by US-led forces.
In the year since the Taliban’s return, militant activity in Pakistan has spiked, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, with around 433 people killed.
‘The same old game’
“They started the same old game: target killings, bomb blasts, kidnappings — and making calls for extortion,” Swat community activist Ahmad Shah said.
The blackmail network bankrolls the TTP, but also sows a crisis of confidence in local government the militants seek to usurp in favour of Islamist rule.
Provincial lawmaker Nisar Mohmand estimates 80 to 95 per cent of well-off residents in surrounding districts are now blackmail victims.
Fellow legislators have been targeted for refusing to pay out, and some are too fearful to visit their precincts.
