August 12, 2007	Sunday	Rajab 27, 1428

KOHAT, Aug 11: The NWFP government has decided to hold talks with Taliban of Darra Adamkhel to maintain law and order in the area, a senior official told Dawn on Saturday.

NWFP additional chief secretary Javed Iqbal told a high-level meeting on Saturday that all issues should be resolved through jirga, suggesting that a new committee should be formed with the consent of local Taliban.

The decision was taken after the Taliban expressed their mistrust over Maliks, members of the newly-formed peace committee and the administration.

Senator Abdul Raziq, Dr Naseem Afridi, Kohat District Coordination Officer Syed Shahabullah Shah and Assistant Political Agent Capt (retd) Tariq attended the meeting.

He said the job of the jirga would be to devise a strategy to deal with local criminals either by arresting them or by asking them to leave the Frontier Region of Kohat.

To a question, the official claimed that the Taliban had neither violated any government law nor challenged its writ and, therefore, there was no need to arrest anybody.

He said the killing of a “notorious outlaw,” blockade of the Indus Highway and burning of several houses during the seven-day Taliban “operation” in the Chargano village had been done to discourage crimes according to tribal norms.

The Taliban have held no talks with any government official or parliamentarians, except for three leaders of JUI-F and banned Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan.

They had not allowed the Khasadar Force, militia, DCO and parliamentarians to enter the village where they had carried out the operation by blowing up “houses of criminals.”

The district coordination officer, Mr Shahab, told newsmen that Taliban had ended their operation in the area on Friday evening, but the villagers were not allowing access to anybody to asses the damage caused by the Taliban action.

Dawn further learnt that Taliban had told a senator that the process of handing over stolen vehicles captured by Taliban from the house of deceased “criminal” would be started from Sunday or could be delayed further.