MINGORA, May 17: A local jirga on Thursday constituted a 15-member team for talks with Maulana Fazlullah for securing peace in the Swat valley. Tension has mounted over the last couple of days when the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariaht Muhammadi (TNSM) announced that they would hold a protest rally on May 20 for the release of their jailed leader Maulana Sufi Mohammad.

The jirga declared that they would not allow anyone to disrupt the peaceful atmosphere in Swat.

Sources said the jirga members would put forward their demands before Maulana Fazlullah and if he did not accept these, the administration would be at liberty to take action against him.

The jirga regretted that with the start of the tourism season in the region, religious radicals had become active, tarnishing the image of the valley.

Although the TNSM later announced postponement their rally, tension is still running high in the area as security forces besieged an under-construction seminary and an illegal FM radio station run by Maulana Fazlullah in the Kabal area, some five kilometres from Mingora.

Eyewitnesses said that paramilitary forces and police had secured key points in the mountainous area and started patrolling.The organisation had earlier planned protest rallies in the Malakand region for the release of Maulana Sufi Mohammad who had been detained in the Dera Ismail Khan jail since Nov 2001.

Sufi Mohammad was charged with sending thousands of his armed supporters to Afghanistan to fight along the Taliban against US forces.

The political authorities said that Maulana Fazlullah, who was son-in-law of Sufi Mohammad and was looking after the affairs of the TNSM in Swat, was wanted for his alleged involvement in various criminal cases.

Maulana Fazlullah, however, denied the charges and vowed that he would not stop preaching through his FM radio station.

BOMB DEFUSED: Police on Thursday defused a powerful bomb planted in mountains of the Fizagut area.