Lahore – Our Village Correspondent: Rahim Haider, a village idiot from a village in Matta, had gained nationwide attention for still wanting talks with the Taliban, whom he still refers to as our “brothers.”
Haider, a native of the Swat valley (not to be confused with Lahore) got his education till class 4th and then went on to being an apprentice at a local tractor mechanic’s workshop.
Though Haider never quite flip-flopped on the issue, he did vacillate between being a spirited advocate for talks with the Taliban and remaining relatively quiet during time periods when the Taliban were particularly brutal.
Doctors and psychiatric pathologists are monitoring his case and he has been mentioned in several medical journals abroad.
“His is an interesting case of an individual simply having no learning curve at all in a particular matter,” says Dr Ishaq Khattak, professor of psychiatry at the Khyber Medical College, Peshawar.
“We should treat cases like Haider’s with love and care. These poor souls are not harmful to anyone,” he said. “Unless, of course, he were to somehow have millions of followers who would even vote him to power in a province.”
