October 06, 2007	Saturday	Ramazan 23, 1428

SWAT, Oct 5: Eight alleged kidnappers were paraded before hundreds of people at the Imam Dehri village on the orders of a radical cleric after Friday prayers.

Maulana Fazlullah announced that the held men, accused of kidnapping two women and killing a man, would not be handed over to the government and instead be tried by the local ulema in accordance with Sharia laws.

“Although a case has been registered against the accused at the Matta police station, but we don’t trust the colonial laws or the judicial system and will punish them according to Sharia on our own.”

He said that a team of local religious scholars had been constituted to conduct the trial.

The accused, with hands tied behind their backs, were paraded before the huge crowd comprising mostly of the cleric’s followers.

An announcement was made about the alleged crime committed by the persons. The supporters chanted slogans of Allah-o-Akbar (God is great) and demanded that they be sentenced in accordance with the law of Qisas.

Armed men had killed a man in an attack on a house at the Nokhara area in Matta tehsil four days back and kidnapped two women. Villagers then immediately set up checkpoints in different areas to apprehend the kidnappers, but the accused managed to fkee. Later, around 400 supporters of the cleric besieged the Kunj village and caught eight kidnappers. The women were recovered and handed over to their family on Thursday.

JIRGA: The district administration has decided to convene a jirga on Saturday at the Frontier House in Saidu Sharif to discuss the conditions put forward by Maulana Fazlullah for reviving a peace deal.

The jirga would consist of local elders and associates of the radical cleric. The maulana had announced a few days back that the peace deal with local authorities had ended. The meeting would also debate how to improve the deteriorating law-and-order situation and the targeting of different infrastructures, including girls’ schools, video shops, salons etc.