Residents of Mingora often wake up to find bodies of those executed by the militants slung from electric poles in the town’s central square in the full view of the military, with a note of warning not to remove them till midday. Some 28 people, most of them women, have been executed over the past few months and their bodies thrown in the square which is now known as ‘Zibahkhana Chowk’, or Slaughter Square.
Bakht Zeba, a former member of Swat district council, virtually signed her death warrant when she criticised the Taliban for preventing girls from attending school. On November.26, masked gunmen dragged her out of her house in the Mulakabad area of Mingora, brutally thrashing her before shooting her in the head. Her body lay there for several hours.
Zeba, who also ran an NGO, was made an example of, for daring to defy the militants. She was yet another victim of the Taliban reign of terror, which has swept the scenic Swat valley. Educated women like Zeba are being particularly targeted. “For a woman, even to come out of her house is considered a crime by the militants,” says Sarfraz Khan, a professor at Peshawar University, who comes from a village in the restive area.
