MINGORA
\nA lawmaker was sipping tea with voters when his phone chirped to life \u2014 the Taliban were calling with a demand for \u201cdonations\u201d.
\n\u201cWe hope you won\u2019t disappoint,\u201d read the chilling text from a shady go-between of the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
\nThen, a second message pinged on-screen: \u201cRefusal to provide financial support will make you a problem,\u201d it warned.
\n\u201cWe believe a wise man will understand what we mean by that.\u201d
\nAfter the Taliban takeover in neighbouring Afghanistan and emboldened by its sister movement\u2019s success, TTP racketeering has infested areas along the border with Pakistan, locals say.
\nSince July, the provincial lawmaker \u2014 who asked to remain anonymous \u2014has been cowed into sending the TTP sums totalling Rs1.2 million rupees.
\n\u201cThose who don\u2019t pay have to face the consequences. Sometimes they throw a grenade at their door. Sometimes they shoot,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cMost of the elites pay the extortion money. Some pay more, some pay less. But nobody talks about it. Everyone is scared for their life.\u201d
\nOpen shelter
\nThe TTP share lineage with the Afghan Taliban, but were most potent from 2007 to 2009, when they overran Swat.
\nThe military came down hard on them in 2014, after a brazen attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, which killed nearly 150 people, mostly pupils.
\nThe TTP were largely routed, their fighters fleeing to Afghanistan where they were hunted by US-led forces.
\nBut with Afghanistan back under Taliban rule, it has become an \u201copen shelter\u201d for the TTP, according to Imtiaz Gul, an analyst with Islamabad\u2019s Center for Research and Security Studies.
\n\u201cThey now have freedom of action while living in Afghanistan,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cthat\u2019s a simple explanation for why the TTP attacks rose\u201d.
\nIn the year since the Taliban\u2019s return, militant activity in Pakistan has spiked, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, with around 433 people killed.
\n\u2018The same old game\u2019
\n\u201cThey started the same old game: target killings, bomb blasts, kidnappings \u2014 and making calls for extortion,\u201d Swat community activist Ahmad Shah said.
\nThe blackmail network bankrolls the TTP, but also sows a crisis of confidence in local government the militants seek to usurp in favour of Islamist rule. Provincial lawmaker Nisar Mohmand estimates 80 to 95 per cent of well-off residents in surrounding districts are now blackmail victims.
\nFellow legislators have been targeted for refusing to pay out, and some are too fearful to visit their precincts.
\n\u201cThey have their own system of reward and punishment,\u201d said Mohmand. \u201cThey have established an alternate government, so how are people supposed to resist?\u201d
\nThe Afghan Taliban have long-standing differences with their Pakis\u00adtani counterparts, and since capturing Kabul have pledged not to allow their soil to be used for militant activities.
\nBut the first telltale sign of a TTP blackmail attempt is the phone number \u2014 starting with the +93 international code indicating an Afghan SIM card.
\nThen comes a suggestive text, or voice message in Pashto \u2014 spoken with a Pakistani lilt. AFP heard one message threatening an \u201caction squad\u201d would be despatched to a landlord if he declined to pay.
\n\u201cThe days of cruelty are near. Don\u2019t think we are a spent force,\u201d it warns.
\nThe sum \u201cowed\u201d is then hashed out, generally through an intermediary, before it is sent to the ragged bands of TTP fighters whose silhouettes haunt the mountain steeps.
\nVictims expect to be \u201ctapped up\u201d up to five times a year, the anonymous MP said.
\nSince the 2014 APS massacre, which horrified Pakistanis even marginally sympathetic to their cause, the TTP has pledged to avoid civilian targets, and claims extortion is done by criminals borrowing their brand.
\nBut a civilian intelligence official in the area insisted they were \u201cthe root cause of the menace\u201d.
\n\u2018Life at a standstill\u2019
\nSwat \u2014 a snow-capped mountain valley split by turquoise running waters \u2014 is one of Pakistan\u2019s most famed beauty spots, but its reputation has a dark side.
\nIn 2012 then 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the TTP while campaigning for girls\u2019 education, a campaign that later earned her the Nobel Peace Prize.
\nThis summer things seemed to have slipped irredeemably back towards those dark days.
\nAfter a decade-long hiatus, the anonymous lawmaker started receiving blackmail texts once again.
\n\u201cThe situation was so bad that many people were thinking of migration,\u201d said Shah.
\n\u201cLife was at a standstill.\u201d But there has been pushback, and several protests against the TTP have been held since the group\u2019s high-profile kidnapping of three officials in August.
\nBusinesses shut and thousands spilled into the streets in rallies up and down the valley.
\nPakistan\u2019s military has claimed that reports of a strong TTP presence in the area were \u201cgrossly exaggerated and misleading\u201d.
\nStill, in Pakistan\u2019s borderlands, attacks and extortion continue unchecked \u2014 despite a professed negotiation truce between the TTP and Islamabad.
\n\u201cWe have to search a solution which is acceptable to both sides. A lasting settlement will have to be found,\u201d said government negotiator Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MINGORA A lawmaker was sipping tea with voters when his phone chirped to life \u2014 the Taliban were calling with a demand for \u201cdonations\u201d. \u201cWe hope you won\u2019t disappoint,\u201d read the chilling text from a shady go-between of the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Then, a second message pinged on-screen: \u201cRefusal to provide financial support will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297770,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-297752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-peshawar"},"yoast_head":"\n