HUMAN RIGHTS activists yesterday called on the government of Pakistan to investigate reports that security forces are using detentions, evictions and house demolitions to punish relatives of Taliban militants.
Researchers with Human Rights Watch said they had collected dozens of credible reports of collective punishment since the Pakistani military retook control of the Swat Valley in September last year.
It is the latest example of abuses by the military in a country viewed as a key US ally in the war against terror.
Ali Dayan Hasan, senior south Asia researcher with the watchdog, said: “Punishing people because their family members may be militants has become rampant in the Swat Valley.
“Not only is collective punishment illegal, it’s counterproductive, because it angers the very people the government hopes to win over.”
The Pakistan Taliban began attacking police and civilian checkpoints in Swat in 2003. Gradually they extended their influence with a “parallel government” and Islamic courts meting out justice under Sharia law.
The Pakistani army reacted with an offensive last year, as the Taliban closed to within 60 miles of the capital, Islamabad. More than two million people fled the fighting, although many of the insurgents simply disappeared.
Today the military remains in control, although insurgents continue a low-level campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations.
However, Human Rights Watch warns that the hard-won victory is being undermined by abuses of civilians.
Victims said that in May, a military-backed tribal jirga, or council, expelled about 25 families from the Kabal and Matta sub-districts for being relatives of Taliban militants who did not lay down their arms. The military took the families to a former Afghan refugee camp at Palai, where they remain in effect incarcerated, according to the report.
On another occasion Tariq Aalim, a resident of Kabal, told Human Rights Watch that one of his sons had been picked up in place of another son who was an alleged Taliban member, and his house was demolished.
“My son Mohammad Aalim was a staunch supporter of the Taliban. I tried very hard to convince him to relinquish his ties with the Taliban, but he ignored me,” Mr Aalim said.
“When we returned to Swat, the army raided our house on September 9th, 2009, and took me and my younger son with them. They told us that they would not let us go until Mohammad Aalim handed himself in. During this period, they beat us mercilessly.”
Pakistan has a poor human rights record. Hundreds of terror suspects have been rounded up and held without charge or any official acknowledgement of their detention.
Last week, human rights activists revealed evidence of more than 200 extrajudicial killings carried out by the military in Swat.
However, Pakistani officials have denied accusations that their actions amount to collective punishment, and said local elders were responsible for expelling relatives of Taliban members.
“The allegations are rubbish,” said Maj Gen Athar Abbas, a spokesman for the army. “Contrary to the view of Human Rights Watch, it is the military that is looking after these people, providing provisions after the jirga expelled them for having links to the militants.”