PESHAWAR: Human-rights activist Manzoor Pashteen, leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), said during a rally attended by thousands of people on Sunday that its members would continue their protests against the treatment of people in the region.
He also presented fresh demands, including that Ehsanullah Ehsan, a Taliban spokesman now in jail in Pakistan, and General Pervez Musharraf be tried in a court of law.
Pashteen also called for the government to establish a commission to investigate how many people have been killed in the country during the war against terror, and how many are missing.
Pashteen said that members of the movement have been dubbed foreign agents by some, but that “we are agents of Pashtuns, we are agents of our people.”
The main political parties did not attend or support Sunday’s rally, which PTM said was attended by about 30,000 people. However, the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP) and the Awami Workers Party formally endorsed it.
Mukhtar Khan Yousafzai, PMAP’s provincial president, said that Pashtuns had been killed and displaced but that the movement would no longer let this happen.
Though major Pashtun party the Awami National Party stayed away from the rally, the president of its doctors’ section, Dr. Iftikhar Hussain, announced his support for the PTM.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Peshawar Shahid Ali Khan said that PTM had applied for permission to hold the rally and received a no-objection certificate.
PTM announced it will hold a further rally in Lahore on April 23, and another in Swat on April 29.
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