Non-Subscriber Extract
Will sharia save Swat?
By Urmila Venugopalan
27 February 2009
The recent ceasefire in Swat, based on an agreement between militants and the provincial government to impose sharia there and in other districts has elicited diverging responses.
Some local journalists have welcomed the move, viewing it as essentially "a continuation of the semi-sharia laws that were already in force" in these former princely states at the time of their merger with Pakistan. However, other observers in Pakistan and the US have criticised it as capitulation to the militants' demands, which may result in the Talibanisation of a relatively moderate society.