Pashtun activist accuses Pakistan of unleashing brutality at behest of anti-terror operations

A Pashtun activist has accused the Pakistan Army of human rights violations in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

A Pashtun activist has accused the Pakistan Army of human rights violations in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Arbab Sohrab Saadat Jabarkhail, who hails from Peshawar and now lives in London, told ANI: "Our houses are getting destroyed every day. Every day our women are getting brutally raped and tortured, which is not acceptable to us. We are not going to stop anymore. We are going to raise our voice. We are going to try for help as much as we can."

The plight of Pashtuns of Pakistan runs deep and is rooted in a series of unfortunate historical events that have led to systematic discrimination of the ethnic group. Discrimination along with violent oppressions has severed the condition of Pashtuns, who are helplessly fighting for their rights since a couple of decades.

They are targeted by the Pakistan Army in the name of a counter-terrorism operation against the Taliban and have sustained irreparable damages for none of their mistakes. Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), a movement for the rights of Pashtuns, has demanded a truth and reconciliation commission to address the claims of extrajudicial killings and missing persons.

The movement also claims that the military supported Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan terrorists, and its leaders are being allowed to return to the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan in a secret deal with the military and the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Arbab Sohrab said: "Taliban is a sad mentality, which is being created by the ISI. Their mentality is naive they do not know anything. They are being trained."

In spite of horrific methods of repressions being used for Pashtun movement, PTM activists say they have nothing more to lose and will continue to protest. On May 1, Sardar Muhammed Arif Wazir, a Pashtun political leader, was shot dead outside his house in South Waziristan. The news of his death triggered an outpouring of grief and anger among the Pashtuns in the North-West Frontier areas of Pakistan.

Though the identity of Wazir's killers is not known, the PTM and its supporters blame the Pakistan Army and the ISI. Mohsin Dawar, a prominent leader of the PTM, and a member of Pakistan's Parliament tweeted upon Wazir's death that "Arif Wazir was murdered by 'good terrorists'. Our struggle against their masters will continue."

The hashtag #StateKilledArifWazir began trending on social media soon after. 

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)