Afraid of one’s own shadow: Militant extortionists force out Landikotal tribesmen

LANDI KOTAL:

Nothing scares Qari Alam Shinwari anymore. The worst has happened and there is nothing left to lose.

On December 17, 2008 Shinwari’s brother Sur Gul was kidnapped by the banned Lashkar-e-Islam in Landikotal tehsil, Khyber Agency. “Militants kidnapped my brother not because he belonged to a rival group or was accused of a crime, but because he belonged to a sect that they considered unacceptable,” Shinwari said in an interview at his two-room house on Kohat Road, Peshawar.

Earlier in April, Gul had had an argument with a local leader of the banned outfit, which is notorious for kidnappings for ransom and killings in the area.



Shinwari, a tribesman from Mirdad Khel, said militants shifted Gul to an undisclosed location after the abduction. “The agony my family went through for the first 45 days of his disappearance is indescribable. Nearly all of us started suffering from psychological problems,” he says.

Militants kept calling Shinwari and threatened to kill Gul if the family did not pay a ransom upwards of Rs3 million. Towards the end of January 2009, Shinwari managed to accumulate the required sum by borrowing from friends and family and selling most of his household items.

He paid off the kidnappers and thought his brother would finally be set free, but three more conditions were set for Gul’s release. “One of them was for me and my family to leave Landikotal and never return.”



Shinwari accepted the new set of demands too and left his hometown along with his family after his brother was released.

“Having to leave your hometown is one of the worst ordeals one has to endure,” he says. “Not only did they force us out, I had to sign a deal with the militants stating if me or my brother are ever seen in the area we would have to pay a fine of Rs1 million or we would be shot dead.”

Unfortunately,the worst was still not over. After relocating from Landikotal to a house near Kacha Garhi Camp on the outskirts of Peshawar, Shinwari started receiving regular calls on his cell phone by militants who threatened to kill him and his children.

“My wife became a mental health patient and my children started spending most of their time at home, fearful of anyone who would knock at our door,” he recalls.

The constant threats forced Shinwari to move again; this time he decided to leave the province and settled in Kamra, Attock. However, the monthly threatening calls followed him to Kamra as well and after a year and a half of living there he shifted to Rawalpindi.

“I couldn’t escape the threats regardless of where I went. I have decided to stop running from the militants. I gathered whatever little belongings we had; three beds, a gas cylinder and a worn-out carpet, loaded them on a bus, and headed to Peshawar,” Shinwari says.

“I do not have the energy anymore to work or to fight, so I’ll just live here and await death,” he says, adding his brother now also suffers from mental health disorders and never leaves the house.

He has changed five houses recently as he could not afford to pay the rent. “I owe people over Rs0.8 million now and I am forced to hide when they come to collect their debt.”

Shinwari is not alone in his plight. On December 17, 2010 Raqeemullah, a resident of Perokhel, Landikotal received a text message threatening him to pay Rs5 million within 24 hours or face death. “I still have that message saved in my mobile as proof,” said Raqeemullah. With the help of a local elder he managed to pay the militants Rs0.5 million and then left his hometown, never to return.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 18^th, 2013.