They were still patrolling the Cheena Bazaar. One day my mother went shopping with my cousin as she was getting married and wanted to buy things for her wedding. A talib accosted them and blocked their way. ‘If I see you again wearing a scarf but no burqa I will beat you,’ he said. My mother is not easily scared and remained composed. ‘Yes, OK. We will wear burqas in future,’ she told him. My mother always covers her head but the burqa is not part of our Pashtun tradition.
We also heard that Taliban had attacked a shopkeeper because an unaccompanied woman was looking at the lipsticks in his beauty shop. ‘There is a banner in the market saying women are not allowed to be in your shop unaccompanied by a male relative and you have defied us,’ they said. He was badly beaten and nobody helped him.
One day I saw my father and his friends watching a video on his phone. It was a shocking scene. A teenage girl wearing a black burqa and red trousers was lying face down on the ground being flogged in broad daylight by a bearded man in a black turban. ‘Please stop it!’ she begged in Pashto in between screams and whimpers as each blow was delivered. ‘In the name of Allah, I am dying!’
You could hear the Taliban shouting, ‘Hold her down. Hold her hands down.’ At one point during the flogging her burqa slips and they stop for a moment to adjust it then carry on beating her. They hit her thirty-four times. A crowd had gathered but did nothing. One of the woman’s relatives even volunteered to help hold her down.
A few days later the video was everywhere. A woman film-maker in Islamabad got hold of it and it was shown on Pakistan TV over and over, and then round the world. People were rightly outraged, but this reaction seemed odd to us as it showed they had no idea of the awful things going on in our valley. I wished their outrage extended to the Taliban’s banning of girls’ education. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani called for an inquiry and made a statement saying the flogging of the girl was against the teachings of Islam. ‘Islam teaches us to treat women politely,’ he said.
Some people even claimed the video was fake. Others said that the flogging had taken place in January, before the peace deal, and had been released now to sabotage it. But Muslim Khan confirmed it was genuine. ‘She came out of her house with a man who was not her husband so we had to punish her,’ he said. ‘Some boundaries cannot be crossed.’
Around the same time in early April another well-known journalist called Zahid Hussain came to Swat. He went to visit the DC at his official residence and found him hosting what appeared to be a celebration of the Taliban takeover. There were several senior Taliban commanders with armed escorts including Muslim Khan and even Faqir Mohammad, the leader of the militants in Bajaur, who were in the middle of a bloody fight with the army. Faqir had a $200,000 bounty on his head yet there he was sitting in a government official’s house having dinner. We also heard that an army brigadier went to prayers led by Fazlullah.
‘There cannot be two swords in one sheath,’ said one of my father’s friends. ‘There cannot be two kings in one land. Who is in charge here – the government or Fazlullah?’
But we still believed in peace. Everyone was looking forward to a big outdoor public meeting on 20 April when Sufi Mohammad would address the people of Swat.
We were all at home that morning. My father and brothers were standing outside when a group of teenage Taliban went past playing victory songs on their mobiles. ‘Oh look at them, Aba,’ said Khushal. ‘If I had a Kalashnikov I would kill them.’
It was a perfect spring day. Everyone was excited because they hoped Sufi Mohammad would proclaim peace and victory and ask the Taliban to lay down their arms. My father didn’t attend the gathering. He watched it from the roof of Sarosh Academy, the school run by his friend Ahmad Shah where he and other activists often gathered in the evenings. The roof overlooked the stage so some media had set up their cameras there.
There was a huge crowd – between 30,000 and 40,000 people – wearing turbans and singing Taliban and jihadi songs. ‘It was complete Talibanisation humming,’ said my father. Liberal progressives like him did not enjoy the singing and chanting. They thought it was toxic, especially at times like this.
Sufi Mohammad was sitting on the stage with a long queue of people waiting to pay homage. The meeting started with recitations from the Chapter of Victory – a surah from the Quran – followed by speeches from different leaders in the five districts of our valley – Kohistan, Malakand, Shangla, Upper Dir and Lower Dir. They were all very enthusiastic as each one was hoping to be made the amir of their district so they could be in charge of imposing shariat. Later these leaders would be killed or thrown in jail, but back then they dreamed of power. So everyone spoke with great authority, celebrating like the Prophet when he conquered Mecca, though his speech was one of forgiveness not cruel victory.