FM Radio Swat — women are listeners

The most talked about personality in nowadays paper and electronic media is; Maulana Fazlullah. He is thirty four years old and is an old resident of Mamderai. He initially got his education from a Madrassa at Kumbar in Dir district. Fazlullah made his native area Mamderi the headquarters for TNSM activities and began preaching his message through an FM radio.

An interesting and strange conviction about Fazlullah’s listener has been that it is women who are mostly the listeners. 15 months back when he launched his FM transmission, it were largely the women who were his regular listeners.

Being a Pakhtoon society the women there have no other means of entertainment. So initially his FM broadcast kept them up to date with the happenings around the city. But soon Maulana began to call up incidents that were un-Islamic and began gradually influencing the minds of an illiterate society. This way Maulana gained the sympathies of general masses in Swat.

But now the FM transmission has become a must to be heard by the women as Fazlullah and commander Duran mention the names of people daily in their transmission who would be their next target if they do not stop the self proclaimed un-Islamic acts. One the issue of destroying the mobile radio station a resident commented asking for animosity, “None of them are destroyed by troops. If your name is on aired in any of nights broadcast, it leaves you with two options, either flee away from Swat or lose your head”.

‘If we do not listen to his one show it can lead to the killing of our men’, a local woman said. Our men are not home and it is us who has to tell them what Maulana said in his broadcast. We have to keep our men upto date for their security’, she added.

Sources have also informed that while Fazlullah began to take donations initially, people gave him a lot in the name of God. This makes proper sense; Swat is a society where Maulana Fazlullah influenced the minds of innocent people by cashing religion. It is how he has played each card in Swat that today the menace is reaching the urban areas.

There is an Urdu proverb that a woman’s ear is flabby, meaning women are the one who can be distracted easily. May be it is for this reason that women have taken influence of Maulana’s words to this extent that is causing bloodshed in many areas of Pakistan now.