PTM: Journey to Ban by an organization formed by some friends

The government of Pakistan has announced to ban the Pashtun Protection Movement (PTM) on October 6.

The Ministry of Interior said in its notification that ‘in the light of concrete evidence, it has been decided to ban the Pashtun Protection Movement.’

The notification added that ‘PTM is involved in spreading anti-national narratives and anarchy.’

After the government’s announcement, PTM central core committee member and Pashtun Jirga spokesman Abdul Samad told Independent Urdu regarding the decisions of the core committee meeting that “our workers have faced jail, torture, arrests and all kinds of hardships.” Patsap has endured for six years.’

He said that ‘the state could do as much as what is wrong with us, what more can they do with us after banning and that is why banning will not affect our movement.’

Abdul Samad said that ‘we have also given martyrdoms in the movement and also held funerals, but we are not afraid of ban.’

Regarding the Jirga, Abdul Samad said that it has been decided in the core committee meeting that the Jirga will be held in any case and still a large number of people are gathered at the Jirga venue.

History of PTM

In Pakistan’s tribal district of North Waziristan, in 2004, as the situation worsened due to the rise of extremism, local people began to raise their voices on the issue.

However, the situation in the area and the law and order situation worsened, after which the Pakistan Army launched military operations in the tribal areas in 2007.

As a result of these operations, the situation in these areas improved slightly by 2009 and 2010, but millions of people had to be displaced.

All this time a young man from North Waziristan, who was studying for Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at that time, raised his voice about the conditions in his area during his studies.

In 2014, along with some friends, he founded the ‘Mehsud Tahafzam Movement’ at the local level and started small protests for law and order.

The leadership of this movement was in the hands of Manzoor Ahmed Pashteen. In 2017, Manzoor Pashteen’s organization made national and international media headlines when he announced a 10-day march towards Islamabad.

At that time, the number of supporters of the organization also started to increase and their demands included law and order in the area, recovery of missing persons and return of displaced persons.

Manzoor Pashteen’s march was so well received that PTI chief Imran Khan, Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Siraj-ul-Haq and other political leaders not only participated in it and declared their support for the organization’s demands.

A photo of a militant trying to hide his face from the camera in the then-tribal region of South Waziristan in 2004 (Haroon Rasheed/Independent Urdu)

Since then, Manzoor Pashteen changed the name of this movement from Mehsud Tahafuz Movement to Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) and also started the formal organization of the movement.

PTM later organized rallies in small and big cities of the country including Peshawar, Karachi, Swat, Lahore, Quetta, in which they openly criticized the government policies.

In these meetings and processions, Manzoor Pashteen also criticized the Pakistan Army. However, the army has repeatedly denied PTM’s allegations.

On these allegations in 2018, the then Corps Commander of Peshawar said in an event that ‘Manzoor is our own child and even if he is angry, we will listen to him.’

It was at this time that the government also constituted a Jirga to negotiate with the PTM, which had different seats from the PTM leaders.

PTM’s series of protests and rallies continued from 2018 to 2020 and they did not back down from their demands.

PTM rallies and processions gained momentum when a youth from North Waziristan was extrajudicially killed in Karachi in 2018.

PTM later also suffered some differences when PTM’s well-known faces Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir entered parliamentary politics and were elected members of the National Assembly.

Manzoor Pashteen had told Independent Urdu about their participation in election politics at that time that ‘our movement is non-parliamentary and will remain so.

“We cannot ban any PTM supporter from parliamentary politics and our movement includes people from all political parties.”

According to Manzoor Pashteen, the police allegedly shelled and fired at the Pashtun Qaumi Jirga meeting hall on the night of October 1 (Pashtun National Jirga X).

Mohsin Dawar and several PTM activists parted ways with PTM when in 2021 PTM founding member Mohsin Dawar founded a new political party called the National Democratic Movement.

However, the narrative of PTM continued to get support from his party including Mohsin Dawar and the people of his party including Mohsin Dawar continued to participate in PTM events and meetings.

Due to PTM’s strong narrative against the state policies, the head of the organization Manzoor Pashteen and other associates including former Member of Parliament Ali Wazir were arrested several times.

Manzoor Pashteen and his organization were also accused of taking funding from foreign countries and creating linguistic divide in the country.

It was also stated by the Pakistan Army in the past that ‘PTM receives funding from abroad to be used against Pakistan.’

PTM’s activities decreased slightly after 2021 and their rallies also became limited but whenever they held a rally, a large number of people participated in it.

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Meanwhile, PTM’s media coverage was also unannounced, after which PTM started using social media to promote its narrative.

Social media was organized at central and regional level, and different social media accounts were created at regional level.

However, PTM did not back down from its demands from the beginning. Recently, PTM has announced to hold a jirga called “Pashtun Adalat/Jirga” on October 11 in Khyber district.

In which various political parties, social figures and political leaders of the country have been invited.

According to Manzoor Pashteen, this jirga will be a joint meeting to solve the ongoing unrest and other problems in the Pashtun region, where a plan of action will be decided for its solution.

The organizers of the same Jirga were also cracked down in recent days, against which a petition was filed in the court. During the hearing, the Peshawar High Court allowed the PTM to hold a jirga.

However, on Sunday October 6, the federal government through a notification banned PTM for its anti-state narrative.

The Home Ministry’s notification said that PTM’s name has been included in the list of banned organizations under Schedule IV.