Pakistani media report Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has increased its subversive activities in different parts of Pakistan after the Taliban retook power in August last year.
TTP is extorting money from influential and wealthy people in Pakistan with numbers having +93 code indicating an Afghan SIM card, according to DAWN quoting local sources.
DAWN’s report contains accounts of wealthy and influential people who were blackmailed by TTP that they would be killed if they did not pay.
Since July, the provincial lawmaker — who asked to remain anonymous —has been cowed into sending the TTP sums totalling Rs1.2 million rupees.
“Those who don’t pay have to face the consequences. Sometimes they throw a grenade at their door. Sometimes they shoot,” he said.
“Most of the elites pay the extortion money. Some pay more, some pay less. But nobody talks about it. Everyone is scared for their life.”
But with Afghanistan back under Taliban rule, it has become an “open shelter” for the TTP, according to Imtiaz Gul, an analyst with Islamabad’s Center for Research and Security Studies.
“They now have freedom of action while living in Afghanistan,” he said, adding: “that’s a simple explanation for why the TTP attacks rose”.
Pakistan has always claimed that TTP is present in Afghanistan and uses the country’s soil against Pakistan. The Taliban, however, reject the claim.
The Taliban meanwhile hosted peace talks between TTP and the Pakistani government at least twice after their domination of Afghanistan which failed to reach a conclusion.