edited by: Oindrila Mukherjee
Last Update: February 18, 2023, 21:43 IST
The Pashtun community has often accused the Government of Pakistan of discriminating against them. (Image: Reuters/Mohsin Raza/File)
Manzoor Pakhtin, president of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, accused the army and the state of raising several terrorist fronts “in the name of jihad” during an address to the Karachi Bar Association
Pashtun human rights activist Manzoor Pashteen took a direct dig at the Pakistani establishment for being responsible for the militancy the country is currently facing. He accused the army and the state of creating several terrorist fronts “in the name of Jihad”.
Pashteen pointed fingers at the establishment during an address to the Karachi Bar Association. He said that Pashtuns did not create and nurture extremists, and it should be probed at least as to who created and empowered them.
“Everyone knows who fed, trained and used the militants. Neither have we created as many militant organizations as there are in the Pakhtun belt, nor have we given them arms and funds.”
At least it should be probed as to who created and empowered these militant groups. If you prove corruption of even a single rupee against me, I am ready to go to the gallows.”
Pashtun, the president of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), belongs to South Waziristan. The social movement is based in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, which have recently seen an increase in terrorist attacks due to the re-emergence of the Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
On Friday, heavily armed TTP militants carried out an audacious attack on the Karachi police chief’s office. They stormed the five-storey building in the country’s most populous city, following an hours-long operation between police commandos and paramilitary forces. Three TTP terrorists were killed and four others, including three security personnel, were also killed in the attack.
In another major attack, on 30 January, a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up during afternoon prayers at a mosque in Peshawar, killing 101 people and injuring over 200. The suicide bomber donned a police uniform to sneak into the high-security area. A police officer said that he was riding a motorcycle wearing a helmet and mask.
The rise of the TTP is attributed to the end of a ceasefire in November last year between the militant group – considered close to al-Qaeda – and security forces.
The Pashtun community has repeatedly accused the Pakistani government of human rights violations against them and exhibiting a discriminatory nature towards them. This is because the Pakistani establishment portrays the community as Taliban sympathizers.
There has been a conflicting opinion that it is because of the Pashtuns that militancy has flourished in Pakistan over time. Pashteen told the KBA lawyers that Pashtuns should not be blamed as the state is responsible for the problem of extremism that Pakistan is currently facing.
Who is Manzoor Pashteen, what is PTM?
Founded in 2014 in Dera Ismail Khan, PTM began as a movement to remove landmines from Waziristan, which has been a war zone since the 1980s. The social movement is against the war and blames the Pakistani government as well as Islamic terrorism for the devastation in this particular region.
Human rights activists have pointed out that the War on Terror has served as a pretext to persecute Pashtuns due to Taliban dominance, which is why they are branded overall as Islamists or terrorists.
The PTM rose to prominence in January 2018 when a 27-year-old Pashtun shopkeeper accused of terrorist connections was killed in a fake encounter by police in Karachi. Then Pashteen and his friends started a protest march from Dera Ismail Khan. , On the way many people joined the march and on reaching Islamabad in February they staged a sit-in called ‘All Pashtun National Jirga’.
The movement, originally called Mehsud Tahafuz Movement, was founded by eight students. Its main task now is to demand an end to extra-judicial killings of Pashtuns.
got support from the group Afghanistan Speaking in favor of Pashteen’s work as a rights activist with former President Ashraf Ghani. It has accused the activist and PTM of being funded by Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies to the Pakistani military. Pashteen, however, has rejected allegations of being a foreign agent controlled by India’s Research and Analysis Wing.
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