Pashtuns blame Pakistan Army for supporting terrorists

Updated:7 years, 6 months ago

Lahore (Pakistan), Apr 24 (ANI): Showing anger and resistance against Pakistan army's brutality on innocent civilians! The Pashtun community in Pakistan continues to protest and seek justice for the atrocities committed by security forces in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas. In its recent stopover in Lahore city, the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), a Pakistani ethnic rights group, drew a big crowd to a rally despite pressure from security officials to call off the event focusing on human rights violations. The leader of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), student activist Manzoor Pashteen, delivered an address to the thousand-strong crowd criticising the country's powerful military and its actions in the majority ethnic Pashtun Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The North and South Waziristan areas of FATA were the site of large military operations in 2009 and 2014 after the Pakistan Taliban took control of swathes of territory in the region. Waziristan is still affected by media restrictions, limiting the ability of journalists to travel there, and activists say that has contributed to portrayal of the Pashtun population as wedded to backward tribal customs and maintaining close ties to militant groups. In 2014, Pakistan army launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan after six gunmen affiliated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban conducted a terrorist attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar city. The Pashtun have been targeted by the Army as many of them have been abducted and extra-judicially killed. Fazal Khan, an advocate, who lost his son in the Army Public School terror attack, blamed Pakistan army for supporting terror in the country. Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement emerged after the January killing by police of Pashtun youth Naqibullah Mehsud in Karachi sparked nationwide condemnation and demonstrations attracting several thousand people. The organisation has drawn the ire of the country's armed forces.