Adil Najam
This photograph was published in Daily Times, January 12, 2009. The caption read:
“Women are not allowed in the market,” reads a banner displayed at the entrance of a market in Mingora. Taliban have banned the entry of women in markets and ordered the killing of women who violate the ban. Most shop owners have sold or shut down their businesses because of falling sales following the restriction.
What would have made this tragic depiction comical had the context been different is that from the picture this is clearly a textile and cloth market - the type of market where, in Pakistan, you would expect most customers to be women!
footnote says that the banner was by order of traders of this market in mingora. the words i could read was bahakum market mingora
What is surprising? Isn’t this all mentioned in Quran. Our religion is basically anti women. These talibanis are only interpreting it correctly.
When I was a kid I asked my mother what this place meant in North Nazimabad and was told that it meant men could not enter. I thought that was very strange because in any case men are never interested in shopping for clothes and jewelry (at least I am not).
Now the Generation-next Taliban are dictating that the opposite should happen in Swat. I once heard a joke in 1993 when the Sharia movement started in Swat long before 9/11 and the war on terror.
I was told that the extremists were asking people to drive on the right side of the road and wear their wrist watches on the right side. I then thought it was just a bizzare joke. I now begin to think as girls schools are being shut around the country that there was possibly some truth in the joke.
In Karachi, this is happening at a smaller scale. The other day I was at a cloth shopping market in DHA, and a “righteous-looking” man passed by me muttering something like “dopatta pehen ke toh niklo kamazkam” under his breath. I was shocked.
What does it say in small fonts at the bottom of the banner?
This is really deplorable.
Zia, yaar your comment might have been funny in another context but what is happening in Swat by these criminals is no laughing matter at all. These barbarians are killing Pakistanis indiscriminately. Cutting off people’s ears and noses in so-called ‘punishment’, hanging people, murdering people and spreading fear. The headline is exactly right, this IS war against Pakistan.
Ladies should open their own markets where entrance of men should be prohibited.