IT is the nature of the beast: those wedded to a life of violence will continue to speak the language of violence if it brings them dividends. The banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, with whom the state has been engaged in stop-start peace negotiations since last year, issued a statement on Thursday, warning ‘secular’ and nationalist groups to desist from levelling allegations against them.

It declared that “These … elements are the enemies of Islam and this country”. While claiming it did not want to clash with any religious or political party, and without specifically naming any ‘offending’ group, it ‘advised’ them to not choose the path of confrontation. More sinisterly, it added: “These parties suffered losses in the past because of their wrong policies.”

No reminder is necessary for progressive parties to recall those terrible years when the TTP targeted them ruthlessly; many of their leaders and supporters lost their lives in the attacks. Among those singled out was the Awami National Party, which had challenged the expanding influence in the Malakand Division of the TTP’s Swat chapter led by Mullah Fazlullah.

The party, which at the time ruled the North-West Frontier Province — as KP was then known — was also very vocal in support of the military operations that finally drove out the militants from the area. ANP leaders Bashir Bilour, also senior minister in the then KP government, and his son Haroon Bilour both lost their lives a few years apart in suicide attacks claimed by the TTP.

Editorial: Ghosts of the past are coming back to haunt the residents of Swat Valley in the Malakand Division

In the first half of 2013, the umbrella group — by then well-entrenched in the tribal areas — carried out violent attacks against the secular ANP, MQM and PPP and crippled their election campaigns in the run-up to the polls that year. The spectrum of brutality the hard-line group is capable of had already become evident several years ago when it held sway in the Swat Valley, turning town squares into sites for public beheadings and banning girls’ education.

That dark era has not been forgotten. The protests across KP, including in Swat and Lower Dir, against the apparent return of the fighters of the Swat chapter — armed to the teeth and threatening as ever — are evidence that times have changed. No longer are the people willing to acquiesce in the name of yet another ‘peace treaty’ with the militants that does nothing to defang the latter but allows them to regroup and crush the populace.

Some analysts believe the TTP may have been taken aback by the collective call to resistance, and its statement should be seen in that light. Nevertheless, the response also appears to show that the state’s parleys with the militant grouping have sufficiently emboldened it to once again act as judge and jury as to who is anti-state and anti-religion. How long before it once again reverts to its role as executioner?

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2022