Barbers resume shaving in Swat

[Naveed Yaseen]

Delawar Jan
PESHAWAR: As the security forces cleared Mingora city of militants and chasing the escaping miscreants and their leaders in Swat Valley, the barbers felt a sense of security and resumed shaving off beards on Tuesday.

The resumption of shaving off beards by barbers is an encouraging development at a time when the internally displaced families are returning to Swat Valley.

The militants had forcefully implemented the ban on shaving off beards by barbers and nobody could dare to oppose them. Defiance of the militants’ decree could risk the life of a poor barber, who had previously displayed pamphlets of having banned shaves to avoid the same.

“I am doing so as other barbers restarted shaving off beards in Mingora. I shaved beards of five or six persons during the last several hours,” a pleased barber in Banr Mohallah of Mingora told The News by phone.

The barber, who wished not to be named, said he saw three persons removing their long beards, not in his own shop, but at his counterpart’s saloon. He said after the military operation, security situation had improved and militants had run away. “Now we have no fear of militants who had forced us for the last eight months to ban shaving off beards,” he said.

Barbers in all the Taliban infested areas, particularly in Swat valley, were the worst hit of Taliban barbarity as they had been driven to near starvation. Such bans were enforced in Bajaur, South Waziristan, North Waziristan, Mohmand Agency and other volatile areas.

The new development after the military operation suggests that the offensive against Taliban in Swat had ended the environment of terror, at least, in Mingora city. Being the district headquarters and largest city in the valley, Mingora is a hub of economic activities and the administrative seat of Swat.

The removal of Taliban fear from the hearts of the terrified people of Mingora is a great success of military, but locals said it should not rest on its laurels and completely eliminate the militants.

The military pushed back Taliban from Mingora city into mountains where they are being chased in a bid to defeat them once and for all.

Locals said the barbers in Banr, Usmanabad, Tahirabad, Marghazar, Shahdara, Malukabad and other areas resumed shaving off beards. “I saw myself barbers shaving off beards of customers in parts of Mingora,” a resident of Mingora, requesting anonymity for his protection, said. “Taliban fear is no longer in people’s hearts,” he said.

The barber, who talked to The News, said his shop remained shut for three months during the military operation and he along with his family was in Rang Mohallah camp for internally displaced persons in Malakand Agency. “Previously, I was earning 1,000 to 1,500 a day, but after the ban, I could hardly earn 300-500,” he added.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=189350