Daily Times

“You have thrown us to the wolves,” is the historic sentence that celebrated leader of the Congress Party Abdul Ghafar Khan also known as Bacha Khan said bitterly after his fellow leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi accepted the partition plan outlined by Lord Louis Mountbatten, the British viceroy. Pashtun, historically, not being part of the subcontinent strenuously campaigned against the British rule in India, since 1930. The Khudai Khidmatgar movement despite being stronger and more organised than the Muslim League unreasonably merged with Indian Congress unconditionally. When the time came to eating the reap fruits in the shape of portioning subcontinent into Pakistan for Muslim league and India for the Congress, Gandhi told his Pashtun fellow leadership, “I have told Mr. Jinnah, he [Jinnah] will keep you people happy.”

After the partition of the subcontinent into Pakistan and India in 1947, Pashtuns were the first victims of the state. Theelected government of the Khudai Khidmatgar in the provincial assembly of NWFP, now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was dismissed in the first week of Pakistan’s emergence. Governor General Muhammad Ali Jinnah invited Abdul Qayum Khan Kashmiri, an ex-congressman, now a Muslim League leaderto form league government in NWFP province that ruthlessly revenged the Khudai Khidmatgar workers. The revenge policy continued, the Leagues’ government put hundreds of opponents, Khudai Khidmatgar members and other political activists behind the bars. On August 12, 1947 political workers and the general public along with Khudai Khidmatgar members gushed to streets to hold a peaceful demonstration against the injustices of the government and imprisonment of workers and leaders. The police and other forces positioned in Babarra in Charsadda of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa opened fires and detonated hand grenades at demonstrators that killed as many as600 people. It is further alleged that majority of those killed were women and children. They say many women that had the holy Quran in their hands as a “ritual gesture” andbegging for ceasefire were wildly gunned down. The victims in cluded the mother of Asfandyar Wali Khan, the present chief of the Awami National Party (ANP). The “wolves” didn’t stop here, hundreds of dead bodies were allegedly thrown to Kabul River, and more than 1400 people were arrested. Hardheartedly, kith and kin of grieving families were forced to pay the prices of the bullets used for killing their dear ones.

The Babbra massacre reminisced the massacre by the then British army on April 23, 1930, where 400 Pashtun political workers were killed in Qissa Khawani Bazzar in Peshawar, where they were peacefully protesting and demanding for the release of Bacha Khan and his companions.

Pashtun mainland has been used for hatching conspiracies and intervention in neighbouring countries. From harbouringof Mujahideen during Cold War and now Taliban and other proxies for the so called deep state doctrine have caused more deaths, devastations to Pashtuns of the area than other parts of the country. Since 2002 to 2017, many joint operations were undertaken against the militants that include Operation Al-Mizan, Operation Rah-e-Haq, Operation Sher-e-Dil, Operation Zalzala, Operation Sirat-e-Mustaqeem, Operation Rah-e-Raast, Operation Rah-e-Nijaat, Operation Koh-e-Sufaid, Operation Zarb-e-Azb and now operation Raddul Fasad and Khyber-4 operation. More civilians have allegedly been killed than the extremist Taliban, in South Waziristan. Orakzai, Pakistan received a total of $33 billion from the US in terms of military and economic aid since Sept 11, 2001, yet Taliban rule the Pashtun areas. A single Taliban leader was not killed in its 7 years operations in FATA and in settled areas like Swat. Hakimullah Mahsood, Tariq Afridi, Maulvi Faqir, Umar Khalid Haji Mangal Bagh, Molvi Gul Bahadar, Molvi Nazir, Molvi Fazlullah Jalaludin Haqani remained alive and active in anti-state activates while killing hundreds of innocent Pashtuns and forces..Even Baitullah Mehsood, Hakimullah Mehsood and many other shadow-Taliban commanders were killed by US in drone attacks rather than by Pakistan. According to a report by New America Foundation, Drone strikes killed 52 militant leaders in Pakistan including 28 senior Al-Qaida operatives. The total drone strikes carried in Pakistan are 371 killing 3309 people while in retaliations, the militants have carried 431 suicide attacks in Pakistan killing over 80,000 people including security forces, inauspiciously, over 50,000 among them were Pashtun.

According to a news report published in The News on January 15, 2010, 12 dead bodies of unidentified persons were recovered from Akhurwal area of Darra Adam Khel, F.R. Kohat, which speaksvolumesaboutthe atrocities in the area in collusion with Taliban.

As reported in Global Terrorism Index and curated by Human Rights Watch (HRW), The conflict between the TTP and the Pakistani government has resulted in displacement of estimated 5 million Pashtuns from FATA. Hundreds of markets and shops were bulldozed and bombarded in different areas of FATAwhile there were 867 attacks on educational institutions in Pakistan from 2007 to 2015, resulting in 392 fatalities and 724 injuries. At least 838 attacks on schools in Pashtun areas between 2009 and 2012, leaving hundreds of schools damaged.In December 2015, the ministry for states and frontier regions reported that, 360 schools were destroyed in three of the seven regions of FATA that year. Overall 120,000 students left schools and never returned in FATA and KP..

On January 20, 2016, alleged TPP militants attacked Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, KPK, killing at least 21 people, most of them students. The barbaric massacre of 141 schoolchildren and school staffers in APS Peshawar and the masskilling of over 70 lawyers in Sandman Hospital Quetta implicitly proved Congress’ betrayal at the time of partition and authenticates Bacha Khan’s words to his fellow congressmen,”as the Pashtuns’ blood is constantly being spilled, 70 years on.