ISLAMABAD (AP) - Police arrested an influential pro-Taliban cleric who had brokered a failed peace deal in northern Pakistan’s troubled Swat Valley, an indication the government will no longer negotiate with militants.

Authorities accused Sufi Muhammad, father-in-law of Swat’s notorious Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah, of encouraging violence and terrorism.

The peace deal in February imposed Sharia, or Islamic law, in the valley in exchange for an end to two years of fighting. But it was widely seen as handing over control of the valley, once a popular tourist destination, to the Taliban.

The deal collapsed in April when the Taliban advanced south out of Swat, triggering a military offensive and a spree of retaliatory attacks by militants in the northwest and beyond. Some 2 million people fled the region, and although hundreds of thousands have returned in the past two weeks as the military operation winds down, sporadic fighting continues.

"At this critical juncture, we cannot allow, we cannot let a person walk free, a person who has supported terrorists," Mian Iftikhar Hussein, information minister for the North West Frontier Province, said Sunday.

"Instead of keeping his promises by taking steps for the sake of peace and speaking out against terrorism, he did not utter a single word against terrorists," Iftikhar said in a news conference in Peshawar.