Four Muftis hear around one case a week and issue the verdict after Friday prays.

The Islamists says their courts provide immediate justice.

Local militant commander Maulana Fazlullah’s preaches through his illegal FM radio that the courts are the true form of justice.

“Your must prefer Allahs system and reject man-made system that is greatly influenced by America and British policies. With British and American system, our government wants to subdue the Quranic system. The Taliban should carefully decide people cases in courts.”

Muslim Khan, the representative for Maulana Fazlullah, says these alternative courts have successful resolved scores of cases such as murder, land disputes and adultery.

However, he does not know the exact number of cases they have ruled.

“I have visited several times the government courts the system got into my nerves. The people also have great trouble with the judicial system that the government has imposed upon us. The people are compelled to bring their cases to our courts. We resolve these cases according to Shariah and the people bow their heads to the verdicts.”

Locals say going through the government courts take years and you have to pay heavy bribes to have cases resolved.

Arbab Khan says he spent nearly six thousand dollars in the government court but failed to resolve a property dispute with his uncle.

He then turned to the qazi Islamic courts.

“Taliban in a week released my tension by deciding the case in a manner acceptable to both parties. They announced the final verdict in the Mosque according to the Quran. Now I will never turn to district courts for any case in future as these courts are dead slow.”

Sher Muhammad, a lawyer in Swat, says complicated and out dated laws made during the British colonial rule are responsible for the slowness of the state courts.

He calls on the government to conduct legal reform to restore faith in the government justice system.

“Britain made the criminal code in 1898. The government should make new laws as the crimes have become much more complicated and cannot be resolved by centuries old laws. We can not allow two different court systems. The elected government should fulfill its responsibilities, and adopt new laws and discourage the Taliban courts or stand down.”

Wajid Ali Khan is a provincial minister, who also heads the government committee that is negotiation the peace agreement with Islamist militants in Swat.

He says as part of the treaty, the secular government will allow some cases to go before the Islamic courts but denies the presence of Taliban courts.

“The government will not accept any parallel judicial system. However, we accept that some cases can be resolved through the jirga the traditional consultation system using elders. This system is a part of the Pashtoon society.”

The reality on the ground is different. Pakistani Islamists have launched a campaign to discourage “evils”. They have created their own jails and have different punishments.

Those who do not pray (Salat) are chained to dogs for a period of time. The punishment for rape and adultery is death.

Dr Ashraf Ali a political and security analyst in Peshawar fears the tribal areas are falling under the control of Afghanistan Taliban style justice.

“In our neighboring country Afghanistan where Taliban enforced this system in their country. We saw that it was the people of Afghanistan who bore the brunt of that system. Now it is engulfing the whole society in the North West frontier province. Its definitely going to affect the entire society in the same way we saw in Afghanistan. We saw that women were beaten up there. I think it will create a sort of chaos, disrupt and disorder in the society.”

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