Anza Kanwal
The Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) held a public gathering in Bannu on 12 January during which prominent leaders, including Manzoor Pashteen and MNAs Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar, addressed the crowd. The gathering, held at Mundan Park, came after a seven month hiatus following the arrest of Dawar and Wazir, independent members from the tribal areas, backed by the PTM last year and was attended by a large number of supporters from south and North Waziristan, Peshawar and other districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa attended the public gathering. According to reports, with these Pashtuns there were Balochi, Sindhi and Kashmiri people too. PTM in recent times has emerged as a grass root movement in Pakistan. Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), has emerged to voice for various human rights issues, including the alleged disappearances of over 32,000 people in Pashtun and majority of them belong to those areas which border Afghanistan.
Ironically, in a video circulating on social media, Ali Wazir is being seen addressing a crowd in Bannu, where he said that “we will cut down the barbed wires and fences which Pak Army has erected on Pak-Afghan border and use them to hang soldiers. Such statements used to be made by TTP representatives. Another important aspect is that Manzoor Pashteen did not even condemn violence against Afghans by US and Indian sponsored ISIS. As India has been experiencing protests all across, likes of PTM has been pushed by foreign agencies to instigate violence in Pakistan. The gathering was also addressed by Arman Loni’s sister. Loni, a prominent PTM leader, died allegedly during a police crackdown on a sit-in in Balochistan’s Loralai on February 2, 2019. PTM will hold a public gathering in Balochistan in February on Loni’s death anniversary.
The leaders and activists of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) are mostly seen acting as a Pashtun rights advocacy group which is currently “struggling” for protecting the rights of ethnic Pashtun people in Pakistan. Though PTM was founded in 1914, it only gained prominence following the extra-judicial murder of a Pashtun boy Naqeeb Ullah Mehsud by the Karachi police in January last year. It again remained in the limelight in the wake of disappearance and brutal murder of a senior Pakistani police officer Tahir Dawar in Afghanistan in November last year. The mainstream media in Pakistan is currently not covering the activities of PTM. However, the leaders and supporters of PTM are actively propagating their ideology, agenda and demands on Social Media. At the same, a section of international news media is also eagerly projecting PTM’s agenda and activities besides portraying PTM leaders as the great champions of Pashtuns’ rights. It is also reporting as if Pakistani military is harshly treating and ruthlessly killing ethnic Pashtun people in the country in the name of fighting terrorism.
Led by its chief Manzoor Pashteen, PTM has held a number of public protest rallies in the country’s big cities like Peshawar, Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad etc. During these rallies, we have seen PTM leaders constantly presenting various demands to the government. Giving a substantial impetus to this very ‘movement’, a large number of ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’ journalists, analysts, political and human rights activists have also readily jumped into the PTM’s bandwagon. Besides this, some anti-establishment political parties are also covertly supporting PTM. In fact, there is an ‘anti-establishment brigade’ in Pakistan which hardly misses any opportunity to malign defame and scandalise the country’s armed forces. This group of people, indeed, has gotten a new platform in the form of PTM to propagate its anti-establishment views and sentiments.
The recent gathering by PTM has now once again proved that this PTM is anti-Pakistan movement. Such activities at the rally have clearly strengthened narrative that external forces are behind this PTM. It is quite notable that such melodrama clearly exposes another conspiracy by India and Afghanistan in internal affairs of Pakistan. India in the past is always found supportive to such Pakistan opposing movements and now this incident is a clear indication that PTM is working by its outer masterminds who are actively involved in damaging peace and stability in Pakistan.
The entire narrative of PTM is currently centered on the country’s army. The bottom line of such a narrative is that the army, as an institution, is persecuting Pashtun population in Pakistan. So, almost all demands made by PTM leaders are essentially related to the army. Ironically, they apparently have no major problem with the civilian government. Nor have Taliban and miscreants ever troubled them. Similarly, they have never blamed the US and their regional allies in Afghanistan who have just torn this region apart in the name of WOT. It is widely believed that the real agenda of PTM is maligning and defaming the army rather than anything else. For this purpose, they are selfishly exploiting the miseries and sufferings of the affected and displaced Pashtuns in the conflict hit areas of KP and erstwhile FATA. In fact, the anthem and slogans of PTM say it all. “Da Sang Azadi Da?” (What kind of freedom is this?) is the punch line of PTM’s anthem. And “the ones responsible for terrorism are the ones in uniform” is its popular slogan. These words certainly have anti state and anti army connotations.
It is important for state and all institutions to differentiate between friends and foes and timely counter propagandas raised against the country before any kind of damage is inflicted. Since decades, India is always busy spreading negativity and rifts to destabilise Pakistan. Moreover, it is no more difficult to understand that the foreign actors have evil designs against Pakistan as they are supporting anti-state elements and hired criminals for the disturbance of state system and in this situation, what all we need is national cohesion.
