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WITH the departure of the Taliban from Pakistan’s Swat Valley, music has returned and fair-skinned dancing girls are back in business. A locality in the eastern part of Mingora city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is famous for its dancing girls. But there is no electricity in the area and the narrow alleys are dark. But its women, once targeted by the Taliban, are back in business and music reverberates till late at night, reports the Express Tribune. A young boy opens the door to a cramped room of a two-storey house. The room is bare and a tattered sofa lies in a corner. A gas burner dimly lights up the room. He ushers in two young girls into the room. Attired in black and red dresses, they say they are cousins and introduce themselves as Rani and Muskan. In late 2008, at the peak of militancy, Muskan and Rani left their homes in Swat Valley for Karachi to escape persecution from the Taliban.
Shabana’s death created a ripple effect and almost all girls left their homes for safer places. "We heard the news of Shabana’s death in Karachi. I was sad and scared. We, too, could have met the same fate if we had not left our homes," says Muskan. "The situation has improved now and we no longer fear anyone. Swat is our home and we cannot live somewhere else," adds Muskan, who is also a model and appears in Pashto song videos. According to Rani, their business has improved and now musical events are arranged with no restriction from the police or religious clerics. "We learnt dance from our cousin, Laila. After she got married, we started performing to feed our 18-member family," adds Rani. "There are at least 20 houses associated with this business at Bunrh and now there is no fear of the Taliban," says her brother Ashfaq. "But there is fear. The first door my friends and I had knocked at was Shabana’s, and no member of her family came to open the door. They do not want to talk about that incident," adds another dancer. Pervesh Shaheen, a local
historian, says there is official patronage to the dancers and they
are paid a fixed amount after a function. No one is allowed to throw
money while they dance, he says, adding that the girls were not
involved in prostitution. — IANS
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Barely
a month after their departure in January 2009 Taliban militants
knocked at a door opposite to their house and dragged out a dancer
named Shabana. They took her to Green Chowk — also known as khooni
chowk — and shot her dead.