PTM meeting in Bara criticises atrocities against Pakhtuns

BARA: At a public meeting organized here Sunday by the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), the speakers criticized what they called atrocities committed against the Pakhtuns in the country.

The meeting in Bara in Khyber Agency was attended by tribesmen and political activists belonging to different parties.

Ali Wazir, one of the PTM leaders, announced that a historic gathering would be held in Peshawar soon. He alleged that the government and intelligence agencies had pressured the PTM for raising the main issues confronting the Pakhtuns in Pakistan.

“A large number of people, especially tribal people, have been participating in our movement after the successful public meeting held recently in Quetta,” Ali Wazir said.

He said the movement would continue till acceptance of PTM demands.

The speakers at Bara included Awami National Party (ANP) Vice-President Imran Khan Afridi, Pakhtunkhwa Olasi Tehreek’s Dr Said Alam Mehsud, Ajmal Khan Afridi, lawyer Karim Mehsud, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Fata leader Iqbal Afridi, Jamaat-e-Islami ameer for Khyber Agency Shah Faisal Afridi, Khyber Union President Bazaar Gul Afridi, Abdul Ghani and other political activists and elders.

The speakers said that the Pakhtun tribes belonging to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Fata had been treated badly for the last several years. They demanded an end to racial profiling of the Pakhtuns and providing justice and compensation to those who were extra-judicially killed.

The speakers sought justice for late Naqeebullah Mehsud and arrest of fugitive police officer Rao Anwar Ahmad Khan for killing the young man from South Waziristan in a fake police encounter. A demand was also made for clearing the landmines and IEDs that have claimed many lives and maimed a number of persons in South Waziristan, North Waziristan and other tribal agencies.

They demanded the government to recover the missing tribal people as soon as possible and produce them in court if there were any charges against them.

“We want the security forces to hand over checkposts in Fata to the Khassadar and Levies personnel forthwith,” said one of the speakers.

ANP’s Imran Afridi asked the government to solve the problems of displaced people who have been recently returned to their homes in Khyber Agency.

He said that Pakhtuns, particularly tribal people, had rendered matchless sacrifices against militancy and for the sake of the country.