A Pashtun Rights Movement Rises; Pakistan Tries to Strangle It

Pashteen and other members of the Mahsud Tahafuz Movement organized a march towards Islamabad to protest the killing and to draw attention to the tribal region’s plight. When it reached the capital, in Pakistani tradition, the protest turned into a sit-in that lasted 10 days until the government gave written assurances that the protestors’ demands, including the arrest of the officer who killed Naqeebullah, the removal of landmines, the release of people in enforced disappearance cases from custody, and the formation of a truth and reconciliation commission to look into cases of extra-judicial killings and other human rights violations against Pashtuns, would be addressed within a month.

The protest made Pashteen a household name in Pakistan. As its popularity expanded beyond the Mahsud tribe to include other Pashtuns (an Iranian ethnic group), his movement rebranded itself as the Pashtun Tahafauz Movement (PTM), and claimed to fight for the rights of all Pashtuns. Young people were especially attracted to the PTM, and it adopted a Pashto song, “Da Sanga Azadi Da” as its anthem:

“Our youth is being killed, what kind of freedom is this?
Our houses are being destroyed, what kind of freedom is this?
Pashtuns are being ruined, what kind of freedom is this?”

The government’s promises to address the protestors’ issues only eased tensions for a while. Their truce soon fell apart amidst disagreements over terms (for example, they couldn’t agree on the number of people who were supposed to have been forcibly disappeared and detained). PTM protests spread across the country in the coming months, its message buoyed online by the educated, tech-savvy young people who joined its ranks. In May 2018, two senior PTM leaders, Mohsin Dawar and Ali Waziri, ran in the 2018 general elections and were elected to Pakistan’s National Assembly as independents.

On 16^th April, 2019, Pashteen appeared before a special committee of the Pakistani Senate, the upper house of its parliament, and presented the PTM’s demands (largely the same demands it made at the 2018 Islamabad sit-in). A spokesman from the Pakistani army responded that, whilst the army wanted to make every effort to resolve the Pashtun issues in the tribal belt, the manner in which the PTM was voicing such grievances (apparently a reference to its criticism of the armed forces) would not be tolerated. He also accused the PTM of receiving funding from foreign forces, including the National Directorate of Security (NDS) (the Afghan intelligence agency) and the Research and Analysis Wing (its Indian counterpart).

“[T]ell us how much money did you get from the NDS to run your campaign?” he asked. “How much money did RAW give you for the first dharna (sit-in) in Islamabad?”

On 26^th May, 2019, Dawar and Wazir along with a band of about 300 protesters were marching towards a village in North Waziristan District to protest a military search operation in the area following two militant attacks on military personnel, when 13 protesters were killed and several others injured in what the government claimed was an “attack on check post instigated by Mr Dawar and Mr Wazir.”