Taliban on Tuesday torched the only ski resort and separately killed three people in Malam Jabba in Swat valley despite a recent truce with security forces, officials said. The attack on the government-run hotel happened at Malam Jabba where a faction of the Taliban signed a peace deal with authorities in May after months of clashes.
"Miscreants set the resort on fire on Tuesday night. The extent of damage is still not known and information is coming in," said General Manager of the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) Usman Shafi. Residents said a large portion of the resort, run by the PTDC, had been reduced to ashes and the militants also damaged chairlifts and a tower belonging to the Meteorological Department.
The hotel, located some 150 kilometres north of Islamabad at an altitude of 2,636 metres (9,200 feet), had been closed for several months since unrest in the area had kept all tourists away. Swat police chief Waqif Khan told AFP the ski facility had been torched at Malam Jabba and the police had registered a case against "unknown miscreants," a term officials use to describe local Taliban.
"The PTDC hotel has been set on fire by unknown miscreants. We don't know the details since there is no government control in that area," Khan said, adding that nearby buildings were also damaged. The Taliban also torched three houses and shot dead two relatives of a local politician in the Matta district of Swat Valley, Khan said. A woman was killed in the fire at one of the houses, he said. Witnesses said the houses belonged to local politician Muhammad Sher, a member of a party loyal to President Pervez Musharraf.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.