ISLAMABAD: The news of brutal killing of eight innocent Pakistani tribesmen, including four brothers, by Afghan special security forces triggered a shock wave among the tribal people living within bordering areas of Afghanistan. On Tuesday, while addressing a press conference in Wana, headquarter of the South Waziristan District, Wazir tribe elders vehemently criticized the incident and demand that the government take up the issue with the Afghanistan government at all forums or else the Wazir tribesmen would do so themselves.
“We demand that the Prime Minister, Chief Minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and the Foreign Minister ask the ‘puppet Afghan government’ and their overlords’ clarification regarding the tragic incident” said an elder, belonging to the Kabalkhel tribe of North Waziristan, “Afghan security forces commit such crimes frequently and with impunity; this is becoming intolerable”.
Political representatives such as Malik Reez Muhammad, Malik Nizzam-ud-din, former MNA candidate Hafiz-ul-Amin and others have also collectively condemned the incident and asked for action.
They expressed that the incident was a breach of International human rights and that the government should take the matter up to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), who should probe this act of state barbarism and highlight the culprit.
A spokesperson of Pakistan’s foreign office has tweeted the state’s condemnation but, as of yet, no representative of the Pakistani government has talked to the Afgan government about it.
On 10 March, Eight people were taken out of their homes, brutally beaten and then shot dead near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Berman district of Paktika province.
According to a report by a local media outlet, the Afghan government is making it hard for Pakistanis who are taking refuge in Paktia and Paktika provinces of Afghanistan, to return to Waziristan. The Afghan forces reportedly tore up forms and beat up those who had brought the forms which were sent by Pakistani authorities, demanding the return of its citizens.
According to a February 2018 report, around 100 North Waziristan families are stranded at the Ghulam Khan check-post at the Pak-Afghan border. These families took refuge in Afghanistan as the army launched operation Zarb-i-Azb against militants in June 2014.
It is also worth mentioning that, Superintendent of Police (SP) Tahir Khan Dawar, who was kidnapped from Islamabad’s G-10/4 area on October 26, was murdered in Afghanistan. His tortured body was found in Dur Baba district of Nangarhar province.
