Taliban demands end to music on Pakistan buses

Bus drivers in northwest Pakistan have begun removing audio and video equipment from their vehicles after Taliban militants threatened suicide attacks against those who played music or movies for their passengers, an industry official said Tuesday.

Transport workers in Mardan town received letters this week from militants saying that buses offering such entertainment were guilty of spreading “vulgarity and obscenity,” Walid Mir, general secretary of the town’s transport union, told The Associated Press.

The militants said they would check the buses and that suicide attacks would be carried out against vehicles that still had audio and video equipment — prompting union members to act quickly, Mir said.

The Taliban letter complained that traveling in buses that provide audiovisual entertainment was a “source of mental agony for pious people,” according to a text obtained by AP.

/geez, lighten up Francis