KARACHI: At least six activists of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement were picked up allegedly by security personnel following a demonstration held in the city in solidarity with the grassroots movement’s gathering in Lahore.
Three other activists, including a woman, were harassed by unidentified men in plain clothes.
The six activists were picked up from the Cantt Railway Station minutes before they were scheduled to board a train to Lahore to meet other leaders of the movement.
Anum Khan, an organiser with the Red Workers Front (RWF), told Daily Times that dozens of people from different organisations got together in fornt of the Karachi Press Club and held a protest in the city on the call of Manzoor Pashteen, one of the PTM leaders. She said the idea was to extend solidarity to the PTM leaders and activists holding the jalsa in Lahore. “Several activists of the PTM and various socialist organisations from across the country including Progressive Youth Alliance and RWF participated in the demonstration,” she said.
After the protest, a group left for the Cantt Station to board a Lahore-bound train. However, they were picked by before they could board the train from the railway station and were now out of reach.
“We have received confirmed information through our workers and comrades that all six of them were took away by seucrity personnel in plain clothes,” she said.
The six activists were identified as Aftab Ashraf, an organiser of RWF; Gulbaz, an RWF organiser from Kashmir, Karim Parhar, a PTM leader from Quetta, Zainul Abdin, a leader of PYA, Umar Riaz and Ata Afridi, the PYA Karachi chapter leaders.
Khan said she received complaints from at least three participants of the protest, including a woman, that they were harrassed by men in plain clothes. “The men chased them when they were on their way home. One of the activists was attacked by four men as he was about to head home on his motorcycle.”
Khan said the women activist told her that she was on her way home in an auto rickshaw when three unidentified men stopped the rickshaw and forced her to show them her CNIC. “They took some photographs of her CNIC with their cell phones.”
Published in Daily Times, April 23rd 2018.