PTM postpones Razmak rally after jirga

PESHAWAR: The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) on Tuesday accepted the demand of the government-appointed committee to postpone the protest rally in Razmak in North Waziristan.

The announcement was made after a jirga at the residence of former lawmaker Shah Jee Gul Afridi in Hayatabad in Peshawar. The tribal elders including Malik Khan Marjan, Ajmal Wazir, a former provincial minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader, Shah Farman represented the government while Mohsin Dawar represented the PTM.

A senior PTM leader, Ali Wazir could not reach from Dera Ismail Khan to attend the jirga but participated in the proceedings by telephone. After holding the jirga, the PTM agreed to cancel its rally scheduled to be held on third day of Eidul Fitr in Razmak area of North Waziristan.

Also, the jirga members assured the PTM leadership that all their activists detained by the law-enforcement agencies would be freed on Wednesday. According to Mohsin Dawar, around 100 of their activists had been detained from Islamabad, Wana in South Waziristan and Mir Ali subdivision of North Waziristan. Malik Khan Marjan said the PTM leadership assured the jirga members that its activists would avoid using anti-military and anti-state slogans in their gatherings.

Talking to The News after the jirga meeting, Mohsin Dawar said he and other PTM leaders had never passed negative remarks to malign the state institutions. He, however, said that they would continue to criticise all those people and institutions involved in violating the constitution and denying basic rights to the people.

The jirga members and PTM leadership agreed to hold another meeting on June 22 to find peaceful ways for solution of the problems.

It may be mentioned here that during a meeting with the PTM leaders on Sunday, the government-appointed committee had requested them to postpone the rally that was scheduled to be held on the third day of Eidul Fitr in Razmak.

The PTM leaders had told the government committee members that they would put the request to the PTM core committee for taking the decision and inform the government committee about it within two days.

The PTM emerged on the national scene in January when it began holding protests against the extrajudicial killing of a tribal youth Naqeebullah Mehsud in Karachi.

In February, it staged a sit-in in Islamabad and attracted countrywide attention as it sought justice for Naqeebullah Mehsud, an aspiring model who was killed on the orders of senior police officer Rao Anwaar.