Pak’s truce with Taliban rings alarm bells in New Delhi Creeping Taliban

The Pakistan government’s purchase of peace by acceding to the enforcement of Shariah in the Malakand division of NWFP — this includes the Swat Valley — has raised serious concerns in New Delhi on several counts — particularly the Pakistan Army’s apparent inability to squarely check the influence of Pakistani Taliban that is now beginning to reverberate even in the Punjab province.

Sources said it is tempting to conclude that the agreement marks nothing less than a “military surrender” even though some assessments from Pakistan suggest it could be a tactical retreat. Either way, the broad view in New Delhi is that the Pak Army has accepted its inability to go after Baitullah Mehsud’s Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Waziristan without con ceding ground in Malakand.

The truce is based on the assumption that Sufi Mohammed, founder of the Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-eMuhammadi (TNSM), with whom the agreement has been reached, will deliver on his word that violence will end.

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