THE journey from Mingora to Madyan seemed scarier than usual. Whether it was the roar of the Swat River flowing alongside, the presence of police check posts on the way, or the images of the mob violence that had shattered the calm of the hill station we were heading towards — we were not sure.

On the way, police flagged down our car carrying a handful of journalists. “Where are you coming from and where are you going,” came the query. “We are heading to Madyan,” fellow journalist Fayaz Zafar responded from the driver’s seat.

After verifying our identities, we were allowed to proceed.

As we approached Madyan bazaar the day after a mob had brutally lynched a tourist from Sialkot — over allegations of blasphemy and desecration — we had a completely different picture in our minds.

We thought we would encounter a ghost town, still reeling from the macabre events of the previous day. “I think people won’t come out of their houses,” mused Saeed Iqbal, another journalist travelling with us, as others nodded in agreement.

Despite being the location of a grisly incident of mob violence, life in this hill station carries on as usual

But to our surprise, we arrived to a bustling bazaar, with people going about their lives as normal. From the bus stand, cries of conductors could be heard: “Fatehpur, Khwazakhela, Charbagh, Mingora…”.

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Turning into the quaint street leading to the police station, we passed a small park, where people, both young and old, would usually sit and gossip. But unlike the main road, this street was deserted. Gone were the playful sounds of children, there was only an ominous silence.

The reasons for this uneasy calm became clear as the police station building came into view. Tucked away in a corner of this hill-station, the compound of the Madyan police station was completely surrounded by around 100 police personnel.

“We have never seen a police guard outside the gate,” Shafiullah, a local resident, observed.

The reason for this deployment, it emerged, was that Regional Police Officer (RPO) Muhammad Ali Gandapur and District Police Officer (DPO) Dr Zahidullah were making rounds in the area.

Venturing inside gave us our first peek at the violence that was perpetrated the night before: blackened rooms, burnt doors and windows, offices in disarray with papers and other items scattered. In the courtyard lay the charred remains of the cars and motorcycles that were torched by the mob.

Station House Officer (SHO) Islamul Haq was briefing the officers. He pointed to a servant quarter, saying: “This is the quarter where they took the accused from. We had shifted him here to hide him.”

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When the multitudes broke into the police station, he explained, they unleashed their anger at whatever was on hand, ransacking rooms and setting fires as they searched for their quarry.

Some policemen were inspecting the torched cars. Among them was Assistant Sub-Inspect Nawab Ali. “I had recently purchased this car and was very excited. But the mob set it on fire, and now only the iron structure is left,” he said, lamenting that some of his educational records had also gone up in smoke.

Speaking to the journalists at the scene, the SHO described the events of the previous night. When the accused was brought to the police station, the first question put to him was about his faith.

“He recited the Kalma and said that he was a Sunni Muslim. He also denied burning the pages of the Holy Quran,” the SHO recalled. Before he could ask a second question, the mob was beating down the gate and gunfire could be heard outside.

“When we realised the situation was getting out of control, I immediately shifted the accused to a servant quarter,” he said.

Another officer who witnessed the incident said that when the mob finished searching the police station and could not find the accused, they came straight to the servant quarters and found him there.

Wielding a hammer, one of the men in the mob struck the victim square on the head, and he fell to the ground in a pool of blood. “The mob then grabbed the man by the legs and dragged him out,” the policeman recalled.

What happened afterwards was captured in the gruesome footage of the incident, which has been widely circulated on social media.

Life goes on

Away from the grisly scene, life in Madyan seemed to carry on as usual. Tourists, seemingly oblivious to the recent turmoil, snapped photos of the stunning mountain vistas and chatted excitedly about their travel plans.

Hotels in the vicinity were still packed, even those located next to the lodgings where the victim had been staying.

“It seems like nothing strange has occurred here,” noted Ibrar Khan, a social activist who had come to Madyan in the wake of the lynching.

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Taxi drivers and shopkeepers in Madyan and Bahrain also told us that initially, they were saddened by mob violence as they were worried that tourists may be scared away.

“When the enraged mob blocked the main road, many tourists’ vehicles turned back. We thought that no further tourists would visit the area,” said Saleem, a taxi driver. But the next day, a steady stream of tourists started arriving again, allaying their fears.

Only the hotel where the victim had been staying was closed, sealed by the police for security reasons.

On a road near the Swat River, I encountered two youths in a foul mood. They argued that every time tourist season rolled around, something or the other happened to disturb the peace.

“This time, everything was peaceful, but then this blasphemy incident happened. It will do nothing but defame us and our peaceful valley,” one of them noted angrily.

Activists from Swat, which was the centre of an anti-terror movement in 2022 when Taliban militants began rearing their head once again, were insistent that they would not let extremist forces succeed in Swat.

Aftab Khan, one of the peace activists and founders of the Swat Uprising Movement, noted that elements behind the mob violence were no doubt trying to sabotage their hard-earned peace. “We are going to convene a meeting of local peace activists and chalk out a future plan,” he said, the determination in his voice palpable.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2024