Daily Times

KARACHI: Dozens of activists of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) on Tuesday staged a protest in front of Karachi Press Club against registration of FIRs against leaders of the movement in Qilla Saifullah, Zhob, Swat, and Quetta.

Protesters gathered from various areas of the city, including Quaidabad, Malir, Keamari, Baldia Town, Orangi Town, Landhi and Sohrab Goth. They demanded immediate release of their detained leader, Bilal Agha, while chanting slogans urging the law enforcers to arrest of absconding Malir SSP Rao Anwar.

The protesters held placards carrying slogans in the favor of Bilal Agha and Manzoor Pashteen.

Speakers on the occasion said that the leaders of the PTM were striving to bring the culprits of extrajudicial killing of Naqeeb Ullah to justice. They said instead of doing its job by tracking down Anwar, law enforcement agencies were targeting peaceful citizens of Pakistan whose only crime was that they were exercising their constitutional rights and asking state institutions to honour their constitutional obligations.

They said a similar protest had earlier been held in Peshawar to highlight the double standards of law enforcers.

The protesters were led among others by Haider Mohmand, Ghairat Yousafzai, Aimal Khan Yousafzai, and Mazhar Azad. They were joined by a number of lawyers and members of the civil society.

The speakers said that FIRs had been registered against the leaders of the movement in Qilla Saifullah, Zhob, Swat and Quetta by authorities for their only crime of seeking their rights.

They said further that the PTM leaders was framed under penal codes going all the way back to British colonial administrators. “How can we claim to be a democratic polity if our state suppresses its own citizens using laws introduced by colonisers?” the protesters asked.

They said their protest would continue until their constitutional and lawful struggle for their rights was fulfilled.

Speakers further said that after the murder of Naqeebullah they staged dozens of rallies in Peshawar, tribal areas, Quetta, Karachi and even in Islamabad, where they managed a sit-in for at least 13 days, but they did not harm anything and ended it peacefully. “Then why is the government trying to suppress us?” they asked. The activists dispersed after registering their protest for half an hour.

Published in Daily Times, March 21^st 2018.