Ashish Ranjan
During the 52nd Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, a Pashtun political activist exposed Pakistan’s close ties with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. (TTP).
In his intervention, Fazal-ur-Rehman Afridi stated, “We would like to draw the council’s attention to the deteriorating security situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) Pakistan, which has grave implications for the fundamental human rights and lives of the Pashtun ethnic minority.”
“We are concerned about the unannounced agreement between the government of Pakistan and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to hand over Ex-FATA to TTP for Sharia law administration,” he said.
According to the agreement, approximately 44,000 TTP militants and their families must be resettled in KPK, he informed the Council. Thousands of Pashtuns, led by the Pashtun Protection Movement, have demonstrated across Pakistan in opposition to this agreement and in support of peace in their homeland.
“On January 30, 2023, TTP, believed to be the proxy of the Pakistani Military Establishment, carried out one of the bloodiest suicide attacks in Civil Lines Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing at least 101 and injuring 217 Pashtuns,” he said.
Afridi stated that the TTP, in a recently released report, claimed to have carried out 367 attacks in 2022, including 348 attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 12 in Balochistan, five in Punjab, and two in Sindh provinces of Pakistan, resulting in 446 deaths and 1,015 injuries. In one of the deadliest attacks in December 2014, the same group killed 147 APS students and instructors in Peshawar.
The Pashtun activist requested that the United Nations investigate these atrocities through an impartial mechanism and, if feasible, bring the perpetrators to justice.
Afghanistan and Pakistan will be among the ten countries most afflicted by terrorism in 2022, according to the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) – 2023 published by the Sydney-based Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP). The number of deaths in Pakistan will rise to 643, a 120 percent increase from 2021.
It stated that an increase in attacks by the ethno-nationalist group Balochistan Liberation Army was primarily responsible for this significant increase. (BLA).In Pakistan, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) deaths doubled while Islamic State-Khorasan (ISK) deaths increased by a factor of seven. A third of these fatalities in Pakistan can be attributed to the BLA.
BLA is a Pakistani invention. It is the result of the politics of the ethnic minority in Pakistan, which has transformed into a struggle for survival against the repressive attitude of Pak authorities.
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It continues to bleed the nation at a time when the nation faces significant economic and political challenges. The cases of TTP and ISK, which are promoted for ideological purposes, are comparable.In 2022, terrorism will continue to be concentrated primarily along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, accounting for 63% of attacks and 74% of terrorism-related fatalities.
