Hangu, Apr 15 : Pakistan Taliban has forcibly occupied 10 houses of Sikhs in lower Orakzai Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, took their leader as hostage for ransom and demanded Rs. 50 million as Jiziya (religious tax) from them.

Residents of Ferozekhel area in Lower Orakzai Agency said on Tuesday that around 10 Sikh families left the agency after the demand by the Taliban, who said they were a minority and liable to pay the tax for living in the area in accordance with sharia.

Peshawar, Apr 15 : Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Muslim Khan has said that their men would surrender arms only after they see Sharia enforced in Malakand division of the Sawt Valley, after TNSM chief Sufi Muhammad has asked them to lay down arms after President Asif Zardari approved the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation.

"The Taliban should lay down weapons after the signing of the Sharia regulation by the president," Sufi said while talking to reporters.

Islamabad - Taliban militants in Pakistan's restive north- western Swat valley on Tuesday refused to lay down arms hours after Pakistani government approved Islamic sharia law for the troubled north-western region, to honour a truce with them. "My brother, we have only conventional weapons - and Islamic sharia gives people the right to keep them. Islamic jihad will continue until Judgement Day," Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan told Geo television's Capital Talk show.

Islamabad, Apr. 14: Joyous over the implementation of sharia law in Malakand region of the North West Frontier Province
(NWFP), the Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat Muhammadi (TNSM) chief Sufi Mohammad has said that the law would be extended to other parts of the country too, The Dawn reports.

Talking to reporters in Bathkhela, after government's approval to implement the Nizam-e-Adl regulation, Mohammad said the Taliban and TNSM would work together to maintain peace in the region.

Islamabad, Apr. 14: The Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Kerry has rejected claims that the drone attacks are encouraging terrorism in Pakistan.

"Make no mistake about it. Extremists, religious radicals and terrorism did not begin after drone attacks. So it is important for people to focus on that reality as well," the Dawn quoted Kerry, as saying.

Senator Kerry, who is in Islamabad to discuss the proposed aid package, said that the provisions attached with US aid package to Pakistan were only meant to improve the `effectiveness of aid'.

Washington, Apr. 14: Pakistan, it seems, is caught between the devil and deep sea in its commitments to the US-led war on terror in its lawless areas.

The options before it are to agree to the US demands for joint military strikes in the FATA areas, failing which it may have to settle for the "regional approach", that will see India play a major role in deciding how the menace of terrorism should be met in the volatile region.