Pakistan’s authorities on Sunday banned the Pashtun Tahafuz Motion (PTM), a gaggle combating for the rights of ethnic Pashtuns, calling it a risk to nationwide safety.
“The federal authorities has cause to imagine that the PTM is concerned in sure actions detrimental to the peace and safety of the nation. […] “It’s happy to incorporate the PTM within the First Checklist as a proscribed group,” the Ministry of House Affairs stated in a notification.
The Pushtu-speaking ethnic activist group, which is very crucial of the army, is lively within the tribal area of restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The ban was imposed on the group underneath part 11B of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997.
Led by Manzoor Pashteen, the group had been lively for some years and its leaders blamed the army for the issues dealing with the tribal area alongside the Afghan border. The PTM started because the Mahsud Tahafuz Motion in Could 2014, when a gaggle of scholars created it as an initiative to take away landmines from Waziristan and different elements of the tribal area.
The group rose to prominence in January 2018 after rebranding themselves as PTM following the recognition they gained for searching for justice for Naqeebullah Mehsud, a fellow Pashtun who was killed in Karachi by police, allegedly in a faux encounter.
Pakistani authorities have alleged that the group was taking part in into the fingers of anti-state components working from inside and with out, particularly in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the PTM all the time rejected such accusations.
In December final 12 months, PTM chief Pashteen was arrested after his safety guards allegedly opened hearth on police.
In 2019, a petition was filed within the Islamabad Excessive Courtroom searching for a ban on the celebration. The assertion got here a day after three individuals had been killed and 5 troopers injured in a conflict between safety forces and PTM protesters in North Waziristan.
In 2022, Pashteen was accused of terrorism, following his speech on the Asma Jahangir Convention, the place he had criticized the nation’s armed forces.
Printed – October 7, 2024 02:21 am IST
