News Desk |
Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor shared a tweet on Friday expressing solidarity with the families of missing persons. Apparently, while referring to the military institution, the DG ISPR said that ‘we’ share the pain of the families of missing persons.
In the tweet, the military spokesperson stated: “Our hearts beat with families of every missing person. We share their pain and we are with them in the process of tracing them.”
Our hearts beat with families of every missing person. We share their pain and we are with them in the process of tracing them. Thousands of soldiers have laid lives for security of fellow Pakistanis. Can’t harm anyone. Let none exploit the issue on whatever context. With you.
— Asif Ghafoor (@peaceforchange) May 9, 2019
The tweet, which was shared from his personal account, stated that thousands of Pakistan Army soldiers have laid down their lives for the security of their fellow Pakistanis. The tweet further stated: “Can’t harm anyone. Let none exploit the issue on whatever context. With you.”
Read more: Tabdeeli in Balochistan: Missing persons return to their homes
DG ISPR Presser
On April 29, the DG ISPR said in a press conference that some officials of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) were trying to mislead the people to provoke them against Pakistan and its institutions.
The PTM leaders gathered youth, PTM workers and others at the Shawa Chowk and provoked them against the Kurram Tangi Dam.
While assuring that the armed forces were working tirelessly to fulfil PTM’s demand for the recovery of missing persons, he had indicated about taking legal action against the PTM leadership saying “their time is up.” The ISPR DG had accused PTM of getting funds from Afghanistan’s secret agency, National Directorate of Security (NDS) and India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).
“Those people who are playing with the people whose issues they have brought forward, I would like to tell them that their time is up. Their time is up,” he reiterated. “Problems and demands are genuine and we want to help the people. But the time is up for the people who are using the problems for their benefit,” the DG had said.
Read more: What is the future of PTM?
MNA Ali Wazir, other PTM Leaders Booked
As the army had signaled taking legal action against PTM leadership, the police registered FIR against MNA Ali Wazir and other PTM leaders on the basis of an intelligence report and other sources for hatching criminal conspiracy against Kurram Tangi Dam and for protesting and chanting slogans against state and security forces.
District Police Officer (DPO) South Waziristan Kifayatullah registered on Monday FIR No.1 against the members of PTM’s central committee, including MNA Ali Wazir, in the Mir Ali Sub-Division in North Waziristan.
The tweet, which was shared from his personal account, stated that thousands of Pakistan Army soldiers have laid down their lives for the security of their fellow Pakistanis.
The case has been registered against Wazir, Riaz Khan, Qasim Khan and 9/10 unknown persons under sections 120-B (punishment of criminal conspiracy), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation), 189 (threat of injury of public servant), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 500 (punishment for defamation), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 16 (dissemination of rumours, etc.) of the Maintenance of Public Order.
Read more: KP government establishes Advisory Committee to address PTM’s “Just Demands”
On May 1, the FIR states, the PTM leaders gathered youth, PTM workers and others at the Shawa Chowk and provoked them against the Kurram Tangi Dam. While addressing the public rally, it read, the leaders chanted anti-state slogans and incited people against the armed forces.
The FIR states that the intelligence report would be considered an inherent part of the case. The DPO stated that the case has been registered as the suspects have allegedly incited people to revolt, shouted slogans, delivered hate and provocative speeches, which is a threat to national security.
PTM is a rights-based alliance that, besides calling for the de-mining of the former tribal areas and greater freedom of movement in the latter, has insisted on an end to the practices of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and unlawful detentions, and for their practitioners to be held to account within a truth and reconciliation framework.