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Talibanisation taking roots in Mardan

* Taliban letters ask cyber café owners to stop spreading ‘vulgarity’ * Students face problems as Internet coaching institutes close down

By Akhtar Amin

MARDAN: The local Taliban are gaining influence in Mardan, the second largest district of NWFP, as anonymous people have started issuing threatening letters to cyber cafés in the remote areas of the city after recent bombings of some CD and video shops in the city.

“The shopping plaza owner closed down my net café after receiving a threatening letter from unnamed local Taliban,” said Jehanzeb Khan, owner of a net café in Katlang Bazaar, some 17 kilometres north of Mardan city.

“I tried to convince the plaza owner that the Taliban would not bomb his plaza, but he refused to heed my request and closed my net café,” Khan told Daily Times.

Shopping plaza owner Ashiq Hussain said the modus operandi of local Taliban was that they first issued a threatening letter, and then bombed the shop or market. “In the letter, they have asked me to close the net café and stop its owner from doing an ‘un-Islamic and vulgar business’. My plaza would have been bombed had I not closed the net café,” he said.

A week ago, owners of institutes on internet coaching in Katlang Bazaar also closed their setup after receiving threatening letters from unidentified people that warned them to pack up within three days or their centres would be bombed.

“We train school and college students on using Internet for educational purposes and not for obscenity,” Ali Ahmad, owner of one such coaching centre, told Daily Times.

Obscenity at cafés: Ali Ahmad said that unknown people calling themselves local Taliban stated in the letter, “You are spreading vulgarity among the students, who view obscene movies and websites at your centres.”

He added that after receiving the letters, owners of shopping plazas and internet coaching centres decided to close down their business because of the fear of bombing, given that miscreants recently bombed the office of a non-government organisation (NGO) around 15 days ago at Katlang Bazaar and several CD and video shops in Mardan city.

Shopping plaza owners have displayed big banners on cyber cafés and Internet coaching centres saying, “Net cafés and Internet training institutes no longer exist in the plaza.”

Students facing problems: Mohammad Aamir, an FSc student living in Koti Shah village of Mardan, told Daily Times that he and hundreds of other students now had to travel to Mardan city for Internet and computer training, as these were banned in his area.

On November 23, a bomb planted in a video and CDs market near the Punjab Regimental Centre in Mardan destroyed six shops, but no casualties were reported. Since November, dozens of video and CD shops have been bombed in Mardan city.

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