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After the fall of the Taliban in Swat Valley one could witness many changes like the reopening of schools, colleges, video centres and the return of dance girls, but above all is the emergence of the porn movie industry featuring locals something that no one could imagine before.
The Taliban had earlier banned music and video centres in the area. But now even pornography is freely available at video centres and mobile shops and sell like hot cakes. Though a number of indigenous movies are the talk of the town, three movies are super hits.
One of them features Fazal Khan and Nazbina; the man is a notable from the Totakan area in Malakand Agency, and is in his late forties. Nazbina is a young girl, and the conversation in Pashto between them is lapped up by the people. The 12-minute video is shot on a mobile phone but the quality is quite good. Incidentally, when the movie came to the market three months ago, according to locals, the man ran away from his village while the girl was thrashed by her parents; the man has since returned and the situation for the couple has been normal, as there is no real threat from the Taliban.
The movie did very good business for the local video and mobile shop-owners. Latif Khan, who runs a video shop in Batkhela town, told rediff.com, "I earned a good profit out of it; it sold more than other movies available in the market -- though the demand has reduced now, there are some clients still asking for it."
The second video emerged from an area in Mianbrangola in lower Dir and shows a brothel-keeper from the area. Earlier she survived the Taliban bombing her house, but it forced her to migrate to lower Dir where she lay low for a while before re-emerging now that the Taliban have been ousted. The three-minute video features her with a young male from a neighboring village in Ouch.
Talking to rediff.com, Aslam Gul, a mobile shop owner in Chakdara town, said, "I made a handsome profit with the movie, the demand is increasing with each passing day."
The third movie features a young girl from Jalalkot in Malakand Agency.
A number of other movies in the market even promote homosexuality, something unimaginable in the days of the Taliban.
Actually the new 'liberal' air is not surprising since a majority of the Swati people are progressive and believe in freedom of expression and movement. It was the Taliban that clamped down on them, but now that there's nothing to hold them back the people are once again showing their bold self.