Rights group raps Pakistan for anti-Taliban militia

ISLAMABAD - The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) Monday criticised the military for forcing civilians to form anti-Taliban militias and use them as “proxies” in extra-judicial killings in the country’s militancy-plagued north western region.

We have “serious reservations” about “giving people the power to kill other people”, said Asma Jehangir, chairperson of the non-governmental HRCP, at the launch of the annual report on human rights in Pakistan.

The HRCP said some of these tribal militias were believed to be used by the government forces as their proxies in extra-judicial killings of insurgents. “They can then say we didn’t do this,” said Jehangir.

Residents have found around 300 bullet-ridden and mutilated bodies of suspected Islamist insurgents dumped along the road or hanged from trees in the north-western Malakand region since mid-last year when the military defeated the Taliban there.

Dozens of tribal militias are assisting government forces in Pakistan’s tribal region and the neighbouring North Western Frontier Province, including Malkand.

The Pakistani government says the locals have formed the militias voluntarily but the HRCP claimed many of them were compelled by the authorities.

According to the HRCP report, there were an estimated 2,586 incidents of terrorism in 2009 which killed 3,021 people. Out of these, 1,296 people died in 108 suicide bombings.

The HRCP said the 2009 saw “increasing frequency of organised violent attacks” by Islamists on religious minorities, and the government had done little to improve minorities’ general economic situation.

“Nearly 80 percent of the minority population falls below the poverty line,” said the report.

The violence against women also increased sharply in the past year with 647 women murdered in the name of honour, the report added.