Daily Times (Pakistan): "Girl students warned not to wear ‘fashionable’ burqas"

Never let it be said that this blog does not cover the fashion scene:

Barbers in Darra Adam Khel have followed the example of their counterparts in Bajaur by ceasing the service of shaving men’s beards, two days after an explosion at a barber’s shop near the main Darra bazaar, tribal sources said on Monday.

The barbers hanged notices in their windows saying: "Men’s shaving is banned and Taliban zindabad," eyewitnesses said.

Barber Fazle Rahim told Daily Times: "An (Islamic) organisation ordered the ban on men’s shaving and we are following the order."

Darra is the second tribal town after Bajaur where barbers have agreed to comply with a demand from whom locals refer to as Taliban, for a ban on shaving.

"If we don’t comply with their order they bomb our places. We have no other way out except to accept their demand," Rahim said.

Barbers are the latest group to be targeted by militants, who earlier targeted video and music shops and businessmen dealing in prize bond.

Meanwhile, female students of Shaheen Public School and College were warned against wearing “fashionable” burqas.

A teacher of the private school told Daily Times that militants delivered a letter directing that female students wear the full “shuttle cock” burqa, failing which there would be "serious trouble".

Meanwhile, people who had received death threats have been pasting notes on the wall of a mosque in Darra bazaar asking militants to “pardon” them, eyewitnesses said. "They come to Jamia Mosque in Dara where they paste the notes saying we seek forgiveness for our action that the Taliban did not like," an eyewitness said.

Among those who pasted the notes were tribal policemen and a journalist who the Taliban declared "liable to be killed" for "spying" on the mujahideen. "Since we don’t know who these people are and also don’t know how to seek forgiveness, we found this novel way to send our message to the people who matter," said one cop who just returned from pasting his note on the mosque wall.

Tags: Pakistan, Taliban, burkhas, beards, fashion