The Sindh government has banned Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) Chairman Manzoor Pashteen from entering any district of the province for three months.
According to a notification issued by Sindh Home Department on Friday, Pashteen “provokes the Public through inflammable and hate speeches against the State and Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) posing great threat to the peace within the area of District Malir Karachi,” the official notification read.
The notification states that the PTM chairman has been living in the provincial capital for the past few days.
On Thursday, Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Major General Asif Ghafoor warned the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM)—that emerged following the killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud and later morphed into a countrywide movement for Pashtuns rights.
Warning the leadership of the Pashtun movement, Ghafoor said that the state won’t shy away from the use of force if “lines” are crossed.
He said that the rights movement had three demands — removal of checkpoints, clearing of landmines and the recovery of missing persons. In compliance with these demands, the armed forces have decreased the number of checkpoints in the area, he claimed.
Referring to the second demand, the ISPR DG added that landmines were being cleared. He added that troops have suffered losses because of the mines, however they will all be cleared gradually.
The cases of the missing persons are also being resolved, he said.
“There were around 7,000 cases in 2010-11 which the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan had been hearing on a daily basis,” he said, claiming that over 4,000 cases had been settled while over 3,000 cases were under process.
When asked why the army has not reacted against the ‘strong’ criticism levelled by PTM, the military’s spokesperson said, “We have engaged with them politely because we understand that they are our Pakistani brothers who have suffered a lot from terrorism and then faced a lot of administrative inconvenience during the subsequent military operation.”
“They are our people, they are hurt and have suffered losses, but still they haven’t resorted to violence till now, therefore we have dealt with them politely,” said Ghafoor.
“But now they are heading in a direction where the situation might arise that they cross a ‘line’ […] we request them not to cross that line where the State is compelled to use authority to control them [PTM]”.
