On a rainy Friday evening in early August, six Taliban fighters attacked a police post in a village in Buner, a quiet farming valley just outside Pakistan’s lawless tribal region.
The militants tied up eight policemen and lay them on the floor, and according to local accounts, the youngest member of the gang, a 14-year-old, shot the captives on orders from his boss. The fighters stole uniforms and weapons and fled into the mountains.
Almost instantly, the people of Buner, armed with rifles, daggers and pistols, formed a posse, and after five days they cornered and killed their quarry. A video made on a cellphone showed the six militants lying in the dirt, blood oozing from their wounds.
And why did the people of Buner take matters into their own hands? Because they did not want the Taliban and the Pakistan army to use their hometown as a battle ground.
Good luck to them. But I don’t think they will be able to escape. Still, one should never make the mistake of thinking that ever one in Pakistan is the same or that none of them are trying to avoid the catastrophe that is overtaking their nation.