Pak: Pashtun activists arrested for demanding release of Ali Wazir

Karachi [Pakistan], January 23 (ANI): Karachi Police on Sunday booked several leaders and workers of the Pashtun Tahfuzz Movement (PTM) in an abetting mutiny case after they held a protest demonstration outside the Karachi Press Club demanding the release of MNA Ali Wazir, the Dawn reported.
Pakistan police formally arrested incarcerated PTM leader Ali Wazir last year in February in another case pertaining to allegedly delivering provocative speeches against the security establishment.
He was booked in a third case and the investigating officer produced him before the judge of the Anti-Terrorism Court-II and submitted that on the directives of the court Wazir was arrested for organizing a public rally on the directives of PTM chief Manzoor Pashteen where they raised slogans and made speeches inciting the public against the state and defaming the security establishment, reported Dawn.
They also demanded the release of MNA Ali Wazir, saying whenever he got bail in any case, one more case was registered against him just to keep him in prison.
The report quoted SSP-South Syed Asad Raza who said that the Artillery Maidan police registered an FIR under Sections 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot) and 131 (abetting mutiny, or attempting to seduce a soldier, sailor or airman from his duty) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The police added that the protestors were booked for giving provocative speeches and using 'undesirable language' against the regime. According to the FIR, registered on behalf of the state through police officer Nayyar Dean, around 700-800 PTM and Pakhtun Students Federation leaders and workers held a protest outside the KPC, and they chanted provocative slogans and "raised the flag of another country.
The Dawn report further claims that hundreds of PTM and PkSF workers converged in front of the press club. They were carrying banners inscribed with demands like 'Sindh government stops undesirable attitude towards Pakhtuns in Karachi', 'Stop insult to Afghan women, children and young men', etc.
The PTM leaders alleged that the provincial government was arresting Afghans. Including those who had valid documents. The report claims so far, 2,000 Afghans had been detained and 1,200 of them deported to Afghanistan.
The report further claims that PTM leaders warned "current and former officials of the forces" to amend their attitude or they would do something which might be unimaginable for them.
PTM leader is lately becoming an icon of the non-violent movement in Pakistan, one who speaks for people of the tribal areas and fights for their rights.
PTM leader Wazir, who first lost as an independent candidate from South Waziristan in the 2013 general election, was later elected in the National Assembly as a member of the lower house of the Parliament in the next general election in 2018.
PTM, a popular mass movement shot to prominence in 2018 after the extrajudicial killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud in Karachi. An Anti-Terrorism Court in Karachi cleared him of the original charge in November this year. However, he is still facing trial in three similar cases in Karachi, as well as one in Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa (KP) Miranshah. (ANI)