Pakistani police struggling to stem a growing Islamist insurgency
are recruiting traditional village tax collectors to snoop on militant
groups but critics say the plan is ill conceived and unlikely to be of
much use.
On a recent day about 100 of
the tax collectors, known as numberdars, sat under a big tent in the
town of Sahiwal, in Punjab province, listening to lectures from
policemen and lawyers about their new duties.
A police official read
instructions from a briefing booklet to the men, many of them wearing
turbans and other traditional garb, before the day-long session ended
with a question session during which some of the men raised fears for
their safety if militants caught on to their spying.
"We asked the government to issue us with arms licences so we can protect ourselves," said one of the men after the session.
"Otherwise we and our families
will be at risk of attack," said the would-be informant, who declined
to be identified for s security reasons.
Violence has surged in Pakistan
since a 2007 government crackdown on militants who had long been
tolerated, and even nurtured, for use as tools against old rival India.
Now authorities are turning to
any means they can to try and end the bloodshed and police in Punjab
hope the force of collectors of taxes on water for irrigation, first
set up under British colonial rule, can augment their efforts.
"We want numberdars to become
the eyes and ears of police and help us in eliminating terrorism,"
senior Sahiwal police official Shahzada Ghous Ahmed, who is organising
the workshops, told Reuters.
The plan is being field tested
in Sahiwal, 340 km (210 miles) south of Islamabad, and about 800
numberdars have been trained since the beginning of June.
During the workshops, the
numberdars are given a booklet containing the names of 32 militant
organisations, including al Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and
Sipah-e-Sahaba, and asked to provide information about their members.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba is a
anti-Indian militant group with historically close ties to Pakistan's
top spy agencies. It is accused of being behind the 2008 Mumbai attack
that killed 166 people.
Sipah-e-Sahaba is an
anti-Shi'ite organisation allied with the Pakistani Taliban. It's
off-shoot, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, is allied with al Qaeda and has killed
hundreds of minority Shi'ites over the years.
"It is now the duty (of the
numberdars) to point out religious extremists and those having links
with terrorist organisations," police said in the 12-page booklet.
Punjab is Pakistan's biggest
province home to some of its most violent militant groups and the
numberdars are told to get information about militants collecting
donations and recruiting youngsters.
Security officials in Sahiwal
said they had prepared a list of 111 hardcore militants in the district
and numberdars have been told to find out what they're up to. Reuters
