#1 Barbers warned over beard shaving
Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 12:08 am
BBC
I worry off and on about radicals grabbing Pakistani nukes. People have told me I'm nuts and need a vacation. Well it looks to me that in Pakistan the radicals are winning.Barbers in the main town of Bajaur in north-west Pakistan have been warned to stop shaving off customers' beards.
Several barbers in Khar received leaflets warning of "consequences" if they continue to shave off beards. The leaflets were not signed.
Bajaur borders Afghanistan and there are fears that the region is becoming dominated by pro-Taleban militants.
Beards were compulsory under the Taleban's hardline Islamic code when they ran Afghanistan.
'Scared'
"This is to inform those people who are in violation of the Prophet's tradition by shaving people's beards that if they don't stop they will be responsible for the consequences," the leaflet said.
Residents told the French news agency AFP that around 20 barbers shops in Bajaur's main town of Khar had hung out signs promising not to shave off beards.
"The barbers feel scared," a barber in another Bajaur town told Reuters news agency.
Map
"Ninety percent of their business was based on shaving beards. We virtually have no business now."
In recent months there have been a number of clashes in Bajaur, a deeply conservative tribal area where pro-Taleban militants remain active.
In October 2006, 80 people were killed in Bajaur when Pakistani forces attacked a religious school they said was being used as a militant training camp.
Pakistan has deployed nearly 80,000 troops along its border with Afghanistan to hunt militants who sought refuge after the ousting of the Taleban in 2001.