Another female Taliban victim demands justice

ISLAMABAD - A woman who was publicly lashed after being accused of adultery by Taliban militants three years ago in Pakistan’s Swat valley had got an FIR registered against the culprits, reports said.

The woman, Miraja, a resident of Charbagh in Swat valley, told reporters Sunday that “she was accused of having illicit relations with her father-in-law”.

“The reign of terror is now over and I want justice from the authorities concerned because I was falsely victimized,” she told Dawn TV.

She also got the FIR registered against the three accused, Essa Khan, Alamgeer and Haroon in the Charbagh police station. Police sources, though, informed that all three suspected Taliban militants had already been killed during the military operation last year.

The Pakistan military had launched a massive crackdown in 2009 to flush out militants from Swat valley, in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Taliban had imposed their own brand of Islamic sharia in Swat valley where men were forced to keep beard and no woman was allowed to step out of home.

Earlier, another woman, Saira, publicly lashed by Taliban on adultery charges two years ago had also appeared before the media in Swat. She has vehemently denied allegations levelled against her while her family has demanded the government to provide justice and bring the culprits to book.

Saira was lashed in front of dozens of men and the cell phone video of the sorry incident was uploaded on the YouTube by someone in the crowd. The incident had caused huge uproar in the media and NGOs but authorities representing the government at that time had dismissed the video as fake.