The Pashtun ethnic neighborhood, the second-largest demographic group in Pakistan, has complained about marginalisation within the nation for many years. The Pashtun Tahafuz Motion (PTM), which interprets to Pashtun Safety Motion, is a grassroots organisation targeted on the rights of the neighborhood, particularly within the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and tribal areas. The motion advocates for the safety of the neighborhood from persecution.
On October 6, the Pakistani authorities banned the PTM underneath anti-terror legal guidelines, citing its involvement in actions which might be “prejudicial to the peace and safety of the nation”.
Amnesty Worldwide criticised the ban, calling it an “affront on the rights to freedom of affiliation and peaceable meeting within the nation”. “For years, the Pakistani authorities have suppressed such actions from marginalised areas by resorting to illegal use of power, enforced disappearances, and media bans on the protection of protests or rallies,” Babu Ram Pant, Amnesty’s Deputy Regional Director for South Asia, mentioned.
The PTM was established in 2014 because the Mahsud Tahafuz Motion by college students to take away landmines from northern Pakistan, which is dwelling to Pashtuns and different native tribals. The group rose to prominence in 2018 in the course of the protests towards the killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud, a younger Pashtun, by the police in Karachi. The group rebranded itself because the PTM, demanding safety towards extrajudicial killings.
Hotbed of militancy
The PTM is usually lively within the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa area close to the Afghanistan border, which has been a hotbed of militant actions because the days of ‘Afghan jihad’ within the late Seventies. The area was additionally beforehand part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, generally referred to as FATA, which existed till 2018.
Based on an evaluation by Zainab Akhter on the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Research and Analyses, New Delhi, “Submit-9/11, the tribal areas once more got here underneath focus as al-Qaeda terrorists and Taliban cadres fleeing Afghanistan landed up there forcing the Pakistan Military to launch a number of operations to both eradicate or flush out these parts. Within the days since, the entire space dominated by the Pashtuns has witnessed armed motion resulting in demise, deprivation, disappearances and large-scale displacement of civilian inhabitants.” These developments led to the rise of a bunch just like the PTM.
The group is led by Manzoor Pashteen from Waziristan, who has helped unfold the motion throughout Pakistan, and open branches in different nations, corresponding to Germany.
Mr. Pashteen was booked on terrorism costs in 2022 after he criticised Pakistan’s armed forces. He was arrested in December 2023 after his safety guards allegedly shot on the police.
In 2018, Mehsud’s killing impressed a wave of protests in Pakistan, a big a part of which had been led by the PTM. The group gained large assist from its rallies through the years, which had been attended by hundreds who consider that violence has destroyed Pashtun areas in each Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Distinguished leaders of the PTM embrace Ali Wazir and Moshin Dawar, who contested the 2018 basic election in Pakistan and made their approach to Parliament.
The most recent ban on the PTM was positioned forward of the Pashtun Nationwide Jirga (court docket), an unofficial gathering that goals to “uphold the ideas of justice, equality, and democratic governance inside the Pashtun neighborhood”. Led by the PTM, the three-day “jirga” began on October 11 and invited folks to protect the Pashtun heritage and be part of a “democratic course of to form the future of the nation”.
The occasion was held though the PTM was outlawed and was attended by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and Manzoor Pashteen.
The calls for of the jirga included withdrawal of Pakistani navy in addition to terrorists from Pashtun-inhabited areas inside two months.
Revealed – October 27, 2024 01:52 am IST
