Allow us to live with honour, Pashtuns ask Pakistan at UNHRC

Mar 13, 2019

Geneva (Switzerland), Mar 14 (ANI): Members of Pashtun community from Pakistan have condemned the terror operating camps in parts of Khyer Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) areas during an event held on the sidelines of the ongoing 40th Session of UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Held under the aegis of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), the political activists raised the issue of kidnapping and target killings of Pashtun political activists by Pakistani security forces. Fazal-ur-Rehman, a Pashtun human rights activist and member of PTM said, "Give us the opportunity to live with honour. We are against terrorism. We want to be treated with respect. On check posts which the army has created at every nook and corner of FATA and we want truth and reconciliation commission so that we know that hundreds and thousands of people who are killed in the last 17 years in this so-called war on terror."He added, "There are innocent people killed by Pakistan military and about 32,000 enforced disappearances and we want to know how these people are disappeared and these people were killed." Peer Riaz, another Pashtun political activist said, "There are terror groups which are working from Pakistan occupied areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which they are sending and using in Afghanistan, but at the same time they can create these people to send and fight in Kashmir also". He said these terror camps should be dismantled. "Dismantling is no question, these should be dismantled, because these are not working for Pashtuns, Baloch or Sindhis, these are working basically for Punjabis. All these kind of policies are coming from Punjabi establishment. It is working in their interest."