FOUR months after a local militia stood up to the Taliban and threw them out of their village, killing six of them in the process, the Taliban wreaked their revenge. Last week they cold-bloodedly murdered 40 locals, many of them children, in a car bomb blast.

Shal Bandai, a remote settlement in the lawless North West Frontier province, about 175 miles north of Peshawar, was targeted because its citizens had dared to challenge the insurgents, who now control huge swathes of Pakistan in the tribal territories along the Afghan border.

Last Sunday a suicide bomber drove up to the village school, which was being used as a polling station for a local by-election, and blew himself up.

Rokhan Gul, a pupil at the school, witnessed the attack. “I saw the bomber just before the blast,” he said.

“While taking a sharp curve at the corner of the street his car slipped into a culvert and all of us helped push him out of the hole. Just 10 minutes later I heard a huge explosion and I immediately knew he was the bomber.”

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing. The following day Shah Durran, a Taliban commander in the neighbouring district of Swat, announced on his banned radio station: “We will even kill your children.”

Last week in Swat another Taliban commander declared a ban on girls’ education, saying it was unIslamic. The Taliban have burnt down more than 100 schools in the past year.

The militants, led by Maulana Fazlullah, who is nicknamed “Radio Mullah” for his seditious broadcasts, are trying to spread their insurgency from Swat into the neighbouring districts of Buner and Dir.

While the Taliban have gained influence in Dir, the people of Buner have formed lashkars (local militias) to protect themselves. Shal Bandai was the first village to raise a lashkar last summer to fight back against the Taliban.

On every street corner here teenage boys sling AK47 assault rifles over their shoulders, manning road blocks.

Walking through Shal Bandai three days after the blast, the sound of women wailing could be heard from almost every house. At its outskirts a group of armed youths abruptly stopped our car and demanded our identity. The Taliban had kidnapped the nephew of the local militia chief. Nerves were on edge.

Fakhre Alam, a schoolteacher who is the head of the committee charged with the security of the village, said the locals had turned down a reward of 5m rupees (£44,000) from the Pakistani government after their clash with the Taliban.

The government had offered the villagers the money to buy more arms and ammunition, he said. “We don’t need money. We need peace and security. We asked the government to set up a college instead of sending more weapons to our young people.”

He complained that only 10 police officers had been sent to the village by the government. “Instead of defending us, we’re defending the policemen,” he said.

According to a local police officer, just 550 policemen patrol a population of 1m in Buner. “Fifty-five of the 550 policemen have already quit,” said the officer. In this climate of fear mothers have stopped sending their children to school. But the residents of Shal Bandai remain determined not to allow the Taliban to take over their village.

“We shall fight. This is our life and only we have a right to it. Who are they to dictate to us? We’re not going to give in,” said Alam.

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