Illegal FM Radios Spredaing Hatred

By: Khurshid Khan

More than 100 illegal Fm radio stations have been set up in the tribal areas and throughout NWFP by heads of seminaries and religious groups, which is turning to be the main source of radicalising the society.

The easily manageable radios are busy in spreading hatred rather than religious education, as rival clerics have started smear campaign against each other in every nook and corner of the province and the troubled and backward tribal belt along the Pak-Afghan border.

From Bajaur Agency to South Waziristan in Fata and Tank district to Swat and beyond, a network of homemade FM radios is active round the clock to warn faithful of the self-concieved conspiracies of the non-believers and the US-Islamic deeds promoted by rival sects and groups at the behest of, what they call, Christians, Jews and Hindus.

Dozens of tribemen have been killed in Bara sub-division in the last weeks when supporters of a Pir and a religious cleric attacked and counter attacked each other’s houses and properties. Both the clerics have been expelled from the area, but the hatred and troubled caused due the venomous propaganda will take quite some time to subside.

Both were using FM radios to defame each other and encourage their supporters and followers that the final victory would be theirs. The clerics are out from the area and the locals are locked in bloody feuds and enmities, which in a Pakhtun society, would take centuries to end.

The latest and more dangerous trend in this specialised field is emerging now from Malakand division, once the strong bastion of the banned Tekrik Nifaz Shariat-i-Muhammadi (TNSM) led by its jailed leader, Maulana Sufi Muhammad. The Political authorities in Kurram agency arrested him in November along with his heavily armed bodyguards after he returned from the self-declared Jihad against the US and its allies in Afghanistan. Sufi was a great admirer of the Taliban movement and held several meetings with Taliban Chief, Mullah Muhammad Omar. Sufi took about 12,000 people for Jihad, a number of them were killed, thousands of them were arrested and jailed and hundreds of them are missing till date.

The FM radio show was launched by Maulana Fazlullah, the son-in-law of Maulana Sufi Muhammad in Nekpikhel area of the scenic Swat Valley is assuming alarming proportions, as people are so motivated that money is collected through a door-to-door campaign to pay compensation to the Video/Audio shop owners in case he fails to comply with the advise from the cleric to destroy all electronic gadgets, which he believes the main source of obscenity and the conspiracy against Islam.The FM radio set up at his house in Maam Derai is the popular channel and his main focus is on women asking them to threaten husbands, brothers and son to shave off their (women) hair in protest if they (men) did not obey the orders of Maulana Fazlullah to grow beards.

A series of burning TV,VCRS and other electronics is going on with full swing in Swat these days.Women are the prime source of collecting huge amounts for the campaign and locals told that one woman emotionally charged after listening to the cleric that she donated 300 grams of gold for the purpose.Women have come to the cleric, an informed local influential of the village said, to offer the lives of their sons leaving it at the disposal of the preacher wherever and whenever he want to use to them for the glory of Islam.

The influence of the cleric is growing and spreading at an enormous speed. Locals Pakhtun population is looking towards the government to act, as they cannot getout of grip of the clergy and an affort has been made to get rid of these radios when elders and elected representatives from the area called on the District Nazim, Jamal Nasir Khan in Mingawara and met other government officials requesting them to do something about it on war footings.

The power and inflence of Maulana Fazullah can be gauged from the fact that a party of seven-eight policemen had to be rescued and offered refuge by an landlord of the village when they went to the cleric to ask some questions about the setting up of the radio. Sooner than later it was announced on the radio that police have come to arrest the cleric and according to eyewitnesses thousands of armed followers of the religious figure assembled at the village within less than an hour to stop the police from doing so. Police and the district government seems helpless to lay hands on the cleric or dismantle the tool, which he has been using very effectively to relay the illiterate but obsessed with religious commitment population behind him,” People are motivated that they even burn toys of kids taking them for idols,” a resident of the area said.

The FM radios are locally made by those repairing TV/Radios and the cost of the station varies from Rs. 4,000 to 10,000, informed PEMRA provincial officials, but said that the number of these radios go up and down due to circumstances.

According to reports gathered by the intelligences, Swabi tops the rest of the province wherein these radios are set up in mosques and madrasas. About 98 per cent of the radios are operational in places of worship or where religious education is imparted. One can easily move the equipment from one place to the other, which need an amplifier, a mike and a receiver. The failure of the police and the administration to track down these radios is mainly the coldshoulder response of the clergyled government in the province, which is not taking any risk to annoy the religious leaders, the main base of MMA support.