Mohsin Dawar, a member of the National Assembly and a senior leader of Pakhtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), has reportedly been expelled from the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM). According to a report in The Nation, the PDM chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has expelled Mohsin Dawar from the forum by terming PTM a non-political party with no registration in the Election Commission of Pakistan.
It is your duty @BBhuttoZardari and @MaryamNSharif to make @MoulanaOfficial accountable and not let him become a dictator.. If PDM is really struggling for democracy and Vote ko izzat do then @mjdawar must remain part of it! https://t.co/Rk3tpfdLNC
— Asad Ali Toor (@AsadAToor) November 19, 2020
In a recent meeting of PDM headed by its Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, PTM’s Mohsin Dawar was asked that at what capacity he was taking part in the meetings of PDM. On which Mohsin Dawar responded that he was taking part in PDM’s meeting at his individual capacity, reported The Nation.
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Maulana was reportedly unhappy over the PTM’s last protest in North Waziristan. He asked Dawar to explain to him as to who allowed them to hold a jalsa.
Political analysts and experts are now deliberating over an intriguing question; can the opposition topple PM Khan’s government? Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political analyst who served as a senior official during the 2018 polls, said during a talk-show on Dunya TV that “the movement will likely involve more rhetoric than action”. Dr. Rizvi was of the view that the opposition parties won’t be able to stay united as many of them have “competing and contradictory interests”.
Dawar and PTM are working against Pakistan?
It is important to mention here that Dawar and PTM are often accused of being anti-Pakistan. A mob led by PTM leaders and MNAs Mohsin Javed Dawar and Ali Wazir assaulted Kharqamar check-post in Boyya area of the North Waziristan tribal district on 26 May 2019, causing injuries to five soldiers of the Pakistan Army.
In a statement, Pakistan Bar Council Vice Chairman Syed Amjad Shah expressed the view that any demands of an individual or a group which is within the Constitution must be fulfilled by the government. “But, a few members of PTM are inciting people for separation and are demonizing the state institutions through an empty rhetoric which comes in the ambit of treason,” he said, and called upon the government to take strict legal action against all such elements.
Sultan M Hali, the author of Defence and Diplomacy, believes that “the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been inimical to Pakistan and has waged war against it, causing a loss of nearly 70,000 people. In the near past, the PTM appears to have cloned the TTP. It is ironic that two PTM adherents gained access to the Parliament as MNAs in the 2018 general elections but have not given up trolling Pakistan and its Army”.
Mr. Hali notes that “such statements were frequently made by TTP representatives. They had even targeted the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar on 16 December 2014 in a dastardly attack in which 142 innocent children were martyred. The state of Pakistan got its act together after the watershed moment of the APS attack. Military Operation Zarb-e-Azb took care of the TTP, who were routed and scattered. Their leadership beat a hasty retreat to Afghanistan, but some were hunted down and eliminated”.
The PTM rallies were aimed at launching protests to highlight the plight of the Pashtun community, the second largest ethnic group in Pakistan, comprising nearly 15.42 percent of the population. Around this time, forces hostile to Pakistan, appear to have started sponsoring PTM as it began chanting slogans of Yeh jo dehshatgardi hai, iss ke peechhay wardi hai (‘Behind this terrorism is the uniformed army’).
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Mr. Hali opines that an important aspect is that Manzoor Pashteen did not even condemn violence against Afghans by US- and Indian-sponsored ISIS. It is no coincidence that as soon as India began experiencing protests all across, the likes of the PTM have been pushed by their foreign sponsors to instigate violence in Pakistan.