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| Students blame militants, politicians for Swat unrest |
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Saturday, October 18, 2008
Bureau report
PESHAWAR: A group of students from a professional college of Swat Friday blamed politicians, military and militants for the woes being faced by the residents of the scenic valley.
Talking to ‘The News’, the students said neither the militants nor the army presented the real picture of what was happening in the area to the people of Pakistan and the world at large. As for the politicians of Swat, they left the area to save themselves, leaving their voters at the mercy of militants, they said.
They said when the army started what they called mindless operation they did more collateral damage rather than arresting or eliminating the militants. Throughout the military operation for the last year, only the orchards and crops were destroyed, dealing a severe blow to the economy of the valley dependent on fruits and tourism. What to speak of the poor when the well-off people of the area were subjected to starvation, as they lost everything and even their homes were destroyed in the so-called war on terror, they lamented.
“Dacoits and kidnappers are roaming around because the army men cannot see them in the rising smoke of bombings; they are doing nothing to save the people,” a student, Amjad Ali, said. “Electricity was cut off for 21 days in the district,” another student said, “We used to eat our Sehri and Iftari in the candlelight, while the politicians mandated by the public fled from the region early and now have nothing to do with the crippling creatures...their own people.”
Receiving education is out of question, but the most pressing aspect of all the mess is that most of the children have fallen victims to psychological and mental disorders, remarked another student, Karim Ali Khan.
The students said being in Swat and witnessing all that had been going on, had led them to the conclusion that operation was not as complicated or difficult as the army had been presenting it to the world. It was much simpler, because unlike Fata, the so-called Taliban are very few, unsettled and not mixed up with the Swatis, and just a few foreign bodies easy to be identified and eliminated. But nobody was sincere enough to rid the area of militants, they said.
“There is no one to whom the people of Swat could complain as our phones are dead, our computers off, our cell phone batteries down and our voices suppressed in the thundering sounds of bombing and crackling of the rifles. “We plead the country’s leadership to hear our voice, lest it’s too late,” the students lamented.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
