Sayonara Swat - Anjum Niaz

Here is one major reason for the unpopularity (or hatred) for the federal government - the inaccessibility and unavailability of Law & Order for the ordinary citizen. (Others being provision of basic services and necessities of life.) It speaks volume when a semi-literate 'mullah' is revered more than the all powerful Faujis and their political cohorts. Anjum may well be right - the cancer is spreading - hope it is not terminal and can be arrested. Adieu Swat!

'Maulana Radio' the 32-year-old radical cleric Fazlullah is spared crimination from the former heir to the ruler of Swat, Miangul Aurangzeb. Instead, the Prince, as he once was known ritualistically targets General Musharraf for the rise of Islamic extremism in his former state -- the land of eternal loveliness and vivid emerald mines. Recently he ordered three men to be lashed in public. Their crime: they had abducted two young girls. "They were recovered in two days and returned to their gratified parents. This is quick justice," says Aurangzeb who while not praising the medieval act of punishment meted out to the kidnappers, nonetheless compares the justice that our government dispenses. "Had it been the police, the recovered girls would first have been violated by them and then left to fend for themselves."

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