PESHAWAR: The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) has announced to hold a protest gathering in front of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on August 18.
The political movement said the protest will be held against the ongoing terrorism in Pashtun belt and the illegal arrest of PTM members in fake cases.
There has been a resurgence in terror attack in several parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in recent months. On Sunday, a power blast at a political gathering of the JU-F in Khar town of Bajaur district killed at least 54 people and wounded 150 others.
In June this year, PTM leader and MNA Ali Wazir was taken into custody by security agencies at the Dumdel check post in North Waziristan while he was traveling towards Razmal from Miranshah. He was presented in court and remanded to Bannu prison.
Speaking in the National Assembly, PTM leader Mohsin Dawar said that Wazir had been arrested in the Waziristan region although a case had been filed against him in Peshawar.
The FIA Cyber Crime Circle Peshawar has started an inquiry against Wazir and PTM leader Manzoor Pashteen for allegedly using defamatory language against state institutions. The agency had summoned the two leaders to appear in its Peshawar office before June 23.
Ali Wazir had recently spent 26 months in prison in different sedition cases. He was arrested in December 2020 and released in February 2023.
Wazir has been a staunch critic of the mistreatment of the Pashtun community. He, along with Manzoor Pashteen, has been a key voice of the PTM, which has been demanding justice and accountability for crimes against Pashtuns living in the tribal areas of Pakistan since 2014.
PTM has been advocating for an end to the war crimes, extrajudicial killings, torture, and harassment of innocent Pashtuns under the pretext of counter-terrorism operations in the region.
