doweshowbellyad0 the buddha of swat was second in importance in south asia only to the bamiyan buddhas toi photoevery piece of rock tells a story the monks of gandhara knew this hundreds of years ago when swat valley was not yet soaked with the bloodstains of history buddhist monks walked through the haze leaving their footprints in the dust climbing steep rocks burning under a fiery sun they worked on the hills with their little iron tools days turned into weeks and months into years and the monks skin turned into sunburnt leather but chanting mantras under their breath they kept cutting and carving the rocks and one day as the tools stopped playing music on the rocks and layers of dust dissolved into crisp air the buddha emerged on the mountain with eyes half closed and a halfsmile on the face he was there immortalised in rock stored for posterity thats how this valley was with thousands of statues hundreds of rockcut images and even the footprints of the enlightened one spread all over but that was gandhara a flourishing culture under the kushan kings now swat is a godforsaken valley in a failed state on the brink of collapse in this corner of pakistan history is being reduced to great heaps of dust with kalashnikovs and mortar fire in this valley under control of mullah fazlullah a hardcore taliban commander things have turned bizarre the mullah who commands a heavilyarmed militia preaches hate from the radio and forces girls to wear burqa he has banned hindi films music and even polio drops and this week following in the footsteps of the taliban the radio mullah turned his attention to the buddha when his band of thugs drilled holes into a 130foottall and 1300yearold rockcut image of the buddha filled it with explosives and blew it up a few weeks earlier his men had riddled the buddha sitting in a meditating posture with a hail of bullets reducing his face to a bowl of dust its the tragic tale of bamiyan being replayed all over again the buddha of swat was second in importance in south asia only to the bamiyan buddhas now its gone and as the mullahs men spread their net of hate and terror across the valley there is a threat that some of the most important buddhist sites in the world including the remains of stupas built over the ashes of the buddha may vanish forever the process has already begun as large parts of pakistan bordering afghanistan fall to the militants and undergo talibanisation vishakha desai director of the asia society in new york saw this dangerous trend recently in 1995 i was able to travel through the region without any fear and received warm support from local residentstoday little more than a decade later the atmosphere is so poisoned that neither local community leaders nor the local police came forward to protect these monuments she wrote after the destruction