Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM)

The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement abbreviated PTM), or the Pashtun Protection Movement, formerly called the Mehsud Tahafuz Movement (MTM), is a social movement for Pashtun human rights, based in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan, Pakistan. The movement originally started in 2014 as an initiative for removing land mines from Waziristan, affected by the war in North-West Pakistan.

1. The PTM leaders said that Frontier Corps should be replaced with Khasadar and Levies forces at all the checkposts in Fata. They said that law-enforcement agencies shall refrain from disrespecting tribesmen at security checkposts and stop misbehaving with people in the name of cleanup and search operations.
2. They also demanded immediate release of all the innocent missing persons. They said that the people facing charges of anti-state activities should be produced before the court of law.
3. The relatives of a number of missing persons from different parts of Khyber Agency participated in the PTM rally. They were holding photos of their missing relatives and placards inscribed with demands for their recovery.

Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) aims at protecting the human rights of the ethnic Pashtun people living in the Pashtun Belt in Pakistan i.e. the area comprising KP province, FATA and the Northern Baluchistan. Though PTM has been in existence in Pakistan for the last couple of years, it gained prominence following the extra-judicial murder of a Pashtun boy Naqeeb Ullah Mehsud by the Karachi police in January this year. These days, the activists of this social movement are actively holding public rallies and protest marches in many cities across the country. They have also held public protest rallies in the country’s big cities like Peshawar, Islamabad and Lahore. As a matter of fact, during the last few months, the agenda and scope of PSM has expanded beyond demanding the justice for Naqeeb Mehsud. In a public rally in Lahore on Sunday, PTM leaders demanded the formation of a ‘truth and reconciliation commission’ to thoroughly look into the extra-judicial killings and missing persons. Currently, there is a media blackout on the PTM’s activities in the country. However, the activists and followers of PTM are actively propagating their agenda and demands on social media. Giving a substantial impetus to this movement, a large number of ‘liberal’ journalists, analysts, political and human rights activists have also readily jumped into the PTM’s bandwagon. Similarly, some anti-establishment political parties are covertly supporting PTM. On the other hand, there have also been some Pashtun public rallies, showing solidarity with the armed forces, and rejecting altogether the objective and demands made by the PTM leaders.

The PTM’s current demands range from inquiring into the extra-judicial killing and enforced disappearance of Pashtun people to the clearance of landmines and the removal of security checkposts in North Waziristan. In fact, no one can support the extra-judicial killing or enforced disappearance of any Pakistani. So the extra-judicial killing of Naqeeb Mehsud is equally condemnable and regrettable. His alleged assassin Rao Anwar has been arrested. Indeed, he should be interrogated, tried and punished in accordance with the law. There should certainly be a zero tolerance for any sort of extra-judicial killing by the law enforcing agencies throughout the country.

Noticeably, there has been a significant shift in the organizational agenda of PTM over a short period of time. Instead of keenly protecting the Pashtun human rights, PTM leaders currently look more interested in maligning and discrediting the military. They are openly accusing the military of Pashtun persecution. Unfortunately, some PTM activists are also blaming the military for the 2014 APS Peshawar tragedy. In fact, PTM is holding the military responsible for the underlying Pashtun woes and deprivation in line with some other anti-military ethnic and regional parties. So the current stance and modus operandi adopted by PTM leaders are no more different than that of Mama Qadeer, the founder of “International voice for Baloch Missing Persons”. The instant rise of PTM in Pakistan has certainly raised many eyebrows. However, these sorts of movements and propaganda parties have been mushrooming in Pakistan for a long time. And anti-establishment political parties and individuals have readily been extending their support to these movements in some way. In fact, this ‘anti-military brigade’ hardly misses any opportunity to defame our armed forces.