ISLAMABAD: Police lodged criminal charges against TNSM chief Sufi Mohammad, a cleric who helped negotiate a peace deal with the Swat valley Taliban, accusing Sunday him of aiding terrorism, sedition and conspiring against the government, police said.
‘We have registered a case of treason, rebellion and terrorism against Sufi Mohammad,’ Swat police chief Sajid Khan Mohmand said by telephone.
He has been charged on the basis of a speech he delivered on April 19, declaring that he does not believe in democracy, the constitution of Pakistan or its judicial and parliamentary system, Mohmand said.
‘A case of waging war and conspiracy against the country has also been registered,’ he said.
Sajid Mohmand, the Swat police chief, said the case against Sufi Mohammad was lodged in a police station in the valley,
Information minister for North West Frontier Province (NWFP) Mian Iftikhar Hussain, earlier said the cleric had killed a lot of people and was planning violence again.
‘His actions so far indicate that he still has close ties to the Taliban of Swat,’ Hussain said last week.
Sajid Mohmand, the Swat police chief, said the case against Sufi Mohammad was lodged in a police station in the valley, where troops still skirmish with militants even though they are winding down an offensive launched three months ago.
Mohammad is to be formally charged by a court, a move expected in the coming days.
The peace deal the cleric helped negotiate imposed Islamic law in the valley, but the pact collapsed in mid-April after Taliban militants infiltrated a district south of Swat, and the military moved back in.
Mohammad, who is also the father-in-law of Swat’s notorious Swat Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah, was detained last Sunday near Peshawar.
The case against him could indicate Pakistan is moving away from its past willingness to negotiate with militants, but it also could be a way to pressure Mohammad to reveal any information he has about the location of the Swat Valley Taliban’s leaders, who have evaded capture despite the military offensive.
During an April speech the radical cleric had condemned democracy and elections and said Pakistan’s constitution was un-Islamic.
The speech sparked controversy in Pakistan and was considered to be an important factor in shifting public opinion against the Taliban.
The government had relied heavily on Mohammad’s contacts with the Taliban in the Swat area to try to achieve a peace agreement earlier this year.
Mohammad, himself, does not control the armed militants in Swat, and its unclear how much impact his detention will have on the insurgents fighting in the scenic valley.
But he mobilized thousands of volunteers to fight in Afghanistan after the US-led invasion in 2001. He was jailed in 2002 but was freed last year after renouncing violence.
The Swat Taliban’s ability to re-emerge will depend more on their leaders, including Fazlullah. The army says Fazlullah has been wounded, although the Taliban reportedly deny it. None of the commanders is definitively known to have been captured or killed.
Some two million people fled the region in the early weeks of the offensive, and although hundreds of thousands have returned in the past two weeks as the military operation winds down, sporadic fighting continues. — Agencies
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