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Militants’ threats shut video shops to give way to ‘Islamic business’

* Businessmen say shops closed after police expressed ‘helplessness’
* Govt official says militants planned to tighten noose around Peshawar till June 2008

PESHAWAR: Two men were seen busy putting up a white-coloured banner with announcements in blue, green and red to mark an end to the “business of movies” on Tuesday and the start of “Islamic” business in Fawad Plaza on main University Road.

“New businesses, God willing, will soon be inaugurated,” the banner read at a former digital versatile disc (DVD) shop that had closed a few months ago, as threatening messages were taking heavy psychological toll on local residents. Several businesses of audio and video compact discs have been shut down following a campaign by the sleeping cells of Al Qaeda-linked militants.

Owner of the shop confirmed the shutting down of his business. “I do not want the neighbouring shopkeepers to get hurt because of my business.” He was the second businessman to have decided to close the business in the same market. V-den, another decades-old shop with a huge collection of movies, was the first to pull curtains on the CD business. There have been several bomb attacks on CD shops across NWFP and the main market of CD business in Nishtar Abad in Peshawar has recently experienced the explosion that killed one person.

V-den, centre of English, Indian, Pakistani old and new movies, was launched some 22 years ago when movie-lovers were less in number, but the V-den changed local residents’ taste by attracting them to classical movies.

“We have shut down the business after threats,” Rafique Khattak of V-den told Daily Times. The collection of movies is all set to vanish that took more than two decades to make, he added.

Along with the V-den, the owner has also closed A-den, the audio shop, and C-den, the CD shop, and both entrepreneurs are pondering a business of either garments or medicines.

Police helpless: The shopkeepers did not give up continuing their business until the local police expressed “helplessness” to protect them against any possible attack from militants. “We went to the local police and they disappointed us by saying that we better close down our business if there was a direct threat,” the DVD shop owner told Daily Times. Police, however, cited its problems in protecting the businessmen. “Everyone is seeking protection, but we do not have the required number of policemen to provide it,” Nisar Khan, station house officer at the University Town Police Station, told Daily Times.

“I am also under threat because of police uniform. What should I do? Should I leave the police or fight back?” he said, adding that he had asked higher officials to look into the shortage of police personnel in Peshawar.

Militants surrounding: A senior government official said sleeping cells of militants had set June 2008 as the timeframe to tighten the noose around Peshawar, which is likely to come under attack from the south and north, as pro-Taliban militants have made their presence felt as close to Peshawar as 30 kilometres.

He said the previous government of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal and Islamabad were informed about the situation in Darra Adam Khel in south and Mohmand Agency in the north of Peshawar.

“Our good luck is that the Taliban have not yet made ground in west (Khyber tribal district), otherwise, Peshawar would have been surrounded from three different directions and it would have been extremely difficult to defend the fort from the three-pronged attack,” the official added.

But tribal sources in Bara, Khyber tribal district, said the Taliban had not given up efforts to “create space” to threaten Peshawar from the west. They said the Taliban wanted to block the international highway to cut off Pakistan from Afghanistan. iqbal khattak

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