Taliban seek return to peace deal in Pakistan

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Human Rights Watch expressed concern about continued summary executions by the Taliban ....
Internally displaced persons who had fled to Swabi district from Khwaza Khela village in Swat told Human Rights Watch that on May 18 the Taliban publicly beheaded in the local mosque a villager named Kalimoon Khan, who had joined 10 others in a delegation to a Pakistani military checkpost to request the military not bombard their village. The Taliban accused them of being informants for the Pakistan army and badly beat three of them, beheaded Khan, and threatened to hunt down and kill the rest. Human Rights Watch also spoke to a villager who described heavy shelling on May 19 that resulted in the deaths of 11 civilians from the village, none of whom were Taliban.

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Human Rights Watch said that because the area where the fighting continues is a closed military zone with journalists and human rights monitors barred from entering, it is currently not possible to verify this information independently. Local journalists have left the area, and the army is not permitting Pakistani reporters or foreign correspondents to enter.

“Civilians continue to suffer at the hands of the Taliban and now their misery is being compounded by the military’s disregard for civilians and refusal to allow them to leave the conflict zone,” said Adams. “If the Taliban are to be truly defeated, Pakistan’s military must act to ease the suffering of the people of Swat, not compound it.”


http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/05/25/pakistan-lift-swat-curfew-trapped-civilians

PESHAWAR: A fourth grade student was kidnapped and repeatedly raped for four days and cops of two police stations refused to lodge a case into her kidnapping when approached by the family of the girl, a source confided to ‘The News’.An inquiry was also ordered against the in-charge of Civil Quarters police post, it was learnt, for not listening to the complaint of the aggrieved family when he was approached by the family of Rabia, 12, who was kidnapped and molested.

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Rabia left her house in Khan Abad locality of Nauthia, located close to the Peshawar cantonment, for her school on May 18. When she did not return after the school time, the family approached the Civil Quarters police post where they were referred to the Gulbarg police station.

After police failed to recover the girl, her mother and two elder sisters staged a protest demonstration outside the Press Club to seek help of the chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, on May 21.

A police official said the accused has been arrested and he was produced before a local court that remanded him in police custody. “The accused stated that two people brought Rabia to his house, saying she has been displaced from Swat,” a police official informed.

The cop added that the accused argued before the police that while he was asleep one night when the girl came to his bed and expressed her love with him. ..

http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=179773