The North West Frontier Province government, however, assured the law will not be applicable to non-Muslims.
Today's situation in the Shaksgam Valley is the consequence of what happened in Gilgit in 1947. But is India ready to militarily get back its territories? asks Claude Arpi.
Islamic courts have started functioning in the Taliban stronghold of Swat in north-western Pakistan as per a peace deal signed by the government with militants in the restive region a month ago.
Pakistani authorities have released 12 Taliban prisoners in the restive Swat valley as a goodwill gesture in the wake of a peace deal signed by the North West Frontier Province government and religious hardliners.
Four days after a peace pact was inked between religious hardliners and the North West Frontier Province government, leading cleric Maulana Sufi Mohammad is yet to make Taliban leaders accept the deal, to enforce Islamic laws in the violence-hit Swat valley.Mohammad, who has been holding talks with Taliban leaders, on Friday met its commander Maulana Fazlullah, who is his son-in-law, for direct talks as reports said the Taliban was demanding the withdrawal of security forces.
President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday offered peace talks to militants in Pakistan's troubled northwest even as security forces claimed to have killed more than 50 rebels in an operation in the tribal belt.
The Pakistan government on Monday agreed to enforce Islamic law in large areas of its restive North West Frontier Province, including the Swat valley, in a concession to buy peace in the region, which has been the scene of a raging Taliban insurgency.
Islamists controlling the conservative NWFP last week passed a bill to enforce sharia or Islamic law that critics say is reminiscent of neighbouring Afghanistan's hardline Taliban regime.
'We are in constant touch with the central and West Bengal governments, but the situation is fluid and very little information is trickling in from Afghanistan. Phone lines are jammed and visuals from Kabul are disturbing. Those living in India are distraught'
'When one has a lot of power, one can shut one's ears to the other side. This is what is common between the BJP of 2019 and the Congress of 1947,' says Aakar Patel.
If General Asim Munir, Pakistan's new army chief, wants to help defuse the current polarised atmosphere and shepherd civilian politicians towards negotiations on an acceptable date for elections, he may need to distance himself from any perception of needless hostility to Imran Khan, explains Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W, India's external intelligence agency.
Attlee said Great Britain had concluded that the Indian element of the army was no longer reliable and that Netaji's Indian National Army had demonstrated that. That had shaken the foundation on which Britain's Indian empire rested, argues Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd).
At least seven people were killed on Thursday in Pakistan in two separate blasts, including a suicide attack on the Pak-Afghan border apparently targeting soldiers.
The emperor's appetite for enlarging his realm translated into a fetish for raising taxes, despite the simplicity of his personal lifestyle, points out Devangshu Datta.
'Our biggest problem has been keeping this country together.' 'Nation building is never easy. It is a very difficult task.' 'Even 70 years is not too long a time.'
'Our policy seems to be to give away part of J&K, even though we are entitled to the entire state.' 'The Congress has done so, and the BJP is following the same policy.' 'No one is applying their mind to the legal position.' 'Kashmir is not a part of Pakistan under its own constitution.'
'Godse is no more, but the mindset which gave birth to such distorted philosophy is unfortunately still with us.'
'It is a pattern of behaviour of the Chinese that whenever a Chinese leader visits India or an Indian leader visits China, some incidents take place.' 'When Modi visits China, we should look out for some similar demonstration by the Chinese.'
With Beijing having had a profound rethink on India's admission as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the tectonic plates of the geopolitics of a massive swathe of the planet stretching from the Asia-Pacific to West Asia are dramatically shifting. That grating noise in the Central Asian steppes will be heard far and wide -- as far as North America, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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