Though militants have left for now, Sikhs of Tirah Valley live without govt support

Khyber Agency: Outside his small shop of herbal products, 55-year-old Gujreet Singh sits idle as there is no sign of a customer in the famous Bara Bazar of Khyber Agency. The once bustling market famous for smuggled goods including arms and ammunitions remains deserted for the most part of the day ever since the area became a hotbed of militancy over a decades ago. Singh was a resident of the volatile Tirah Valley but he left the area after militants captured the valley and imposed their law in the area. “We left Tirah valley in the early days of militancy and established a shop of herbs in the [Bara] market but soon we had to leave Bara as well when militants reached the area. Then we moved to Peshawar.” Khyber Agency has seen various conflicts with the onset of the war on terror. It remained in de facto control of Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI), a militant group led by Haji Namdar and Mufti Shakir, that had started as an anti-Barelvi sectarian outfit in 2004. The LeI was an offshoot of a religious group that wanted domination in the area and engaged in propaganda using illegal FM radio channels. The group, known as Amr bil Maruf Wa Nahi Anil Munkar (Suppression of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue), under Mufti Shakir was engaged in bloody clashes with a Barelvi group of Khyber Agency led by Pir Saifur Rehman. When the bloodshed between the two groups escalated, the authorities intervened, asking tribal elders for help in restoring peace. Tribal elders, in collaboration with the political administration, held Jirgas to reach an understanding between the two warring groups. A series of Jirgas were organized by Afridi tribes, which forced Mufti Munir and Pir Saifur Rehman to leave Bara. Gurjeet Singh’s families was amongst those who left Tirah valley when the clashes between the two rival groups increased, and most of the families left for Bara but soon that area also witnessed bloody clashes, when Mangal Bagh, a warlord LeI, imposed his version of Sharia in the area. After Singh’s family left Bara for Peshawar, he spent some years there but decided to return to Bara. After recent series of military operations, peace has been restored in the area, but an environment of fear and uncertainty still prevails. Media from outside the area have no permission to take photos or make videos in the area [when I reached the main market, my cell phone was taken away by a security official because I was taking photographs]. Salam Khan, another shopkeeper, also has vivid recollections of the days when militants ran supreme. He says, “we had to wear caps as no one could dare to neglect the orders of the militants. In every mosque there was registration system, those who didn’t come for five daily prayers were punished harshly. One day I skipped the Zuhr prayer because I was not feeling well. In the evening, five masked men came to my house and gave me a severe beating before presenting me before the Amir. I was made to swear an oath that I will never miss any prayer next time. “Taliban have physically left the place but their sympathizers remain. They demand extortion and threaten us when we don’t pay on time. The government has failed to safeguard us. Minorities have no right to exercise their religious beliefs openly.” A wall eight-feet tall divides the tribal belt and Peshawar. As you cross over into the tribal belt, it appears that the writ of the Pakistani state has ceased. In Bara Bazaar, traders still sell arms and ammunitions without fear of reprisal. Singh’s family frequently visits Peshawar valley for religious occasions, as there are no worship places left in tribal areas. Singh recalls that there used to be a worship place of the Sikh community in his area where they performed religious rites, but when militants struck all the sacred objects in the worship place were shifted to Peshawar out of fear for their safety. Now, he says, they offer daily prayers inside their homes. During attacks by militants, his family and several other Sinkh households got temporarily displaced as well. He says mistreatment at camps set up for IDPs left them with no choice but to seek shelter in gurdwaras in Peshawar and Punjab. When they returned, he recalls, they found their shops [in Bara] burnt. Pakistani security forces have carried out four major offensives in the Khyber Agency – Khyber 1, 2, 3 and 4. The latest was launched in the Rajgall valley to counter TTP and Islamic State. In FATA, the Sikh community is concentrated in Khyber Agency, mostly in the volatile Tirah valley linking Pak-Afghan border with Nangarhar province of Afghanistan on the other side. Singh complains that the government did not fulfill its promise of rehabilitation of the Bara Market after the military offensive. “We rebuilt the shops on our own and set up our businesses from scratch.” “We still don’t have any schools here to send our children for education. There are no Shamshan Ghats and Gurdwaras for the Sikh community. We have to travel long distances to perform last rites of our dead relatives,” he says.  Published in Daily Times, March 15th 2018.