A large number of members and supporters of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) on Saturday held a protest in Peshawar to denounce the move of the Balochistan government to register cases against PTM leaders earlier this week.
Killa Saifullah police on Tuesday had registered a first information report (FIR) against PTM leaders Manzoor Pashteen, Haji Hidayatullah, Ali Wazir, Khan Zaman Kakar, and others, for allegedly inciting hatred and violence.
The PTM leaders were booked for protesting the enforced disappearances of Pakhtuns, extrajudicial arrests and killings, stereotyping, and mistreatment at the hands of law enforcement agencies in the tribal areas and the rest of the country.
During the protest, called by PTM’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter, the youth chanted slogans against the federal and Balochistan governments. They also demanded the immediate withdrawal of the bogus FIR against the leaders of the youth movement.
“They were booked by the Balochistan government for demanding their constitutional rights. Registration of FIR against them is a very shameful act on part of the officials concerned,” a protestor said. He said that bogus legal action against the PTM leaders was an attempt to muffle the voices of the Pakhtuns who were demanding basic rights, equality, dignity, and security of their lives and properties as guaranteed by the constitution.
“We would not step back in fear in the face of such tactics,” he further said, adding that the movement would continue under the PTM banner.
The Pakhtun youth movement first gained national and international attention when the protestors observed a sit-in in Islamabad earlier this year to demand justice for slain Waziristan youth Naqeebullah Mehsud in a fake police encounter in Karachi.
This moment was considered the most instrumental in uniting the Pakhtun youth to raise their voices and narrate their ordeals in the 16-year-long war against militancy in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
According to the leaders of PTM, around 32,000 Pakhtuns have gone missing from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in the last one decade. The movement had been working to secure the rights of those affected by the long war and subsequent displacement of a large portion of the tribal population, especially from South Waziristan.
The young Pakhtun leaders have been moving forward peacefully while ensuring that their demands fell within the bounds of the constitution. They have also been demanding the law enforcement agencies to provide details of all the people picked up by them and present them before courts per constitutional provisions.
