Pashteen handed over to K-P police

QUETTA:

Balochistan Caretaker Information Minister, Jan Achakzai has announced that Chief of the Pakhtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), Manzoor Pashteen, has been handed over to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Dera Ismail Khan police at Drazanda on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters in Quetta, Achakzai stated that Pashteen is safe and sound and handed over to the K-P police.

This development comes a day after the Deputy Commissioner Chaman, Raja Athar Abbas, said Pashteen was arrested after his guards allegedly opened fire on police in Chaman when police tried to stop him at a check post.

The charge was vehemently denied by the PTM which accused the police of opening unprovoked fire at the vehicle of Manzoor Pashteen.

Achakzai, however, said that the government was considering banning the PTM because of what he called anti-state activities of the organization.

Pashteen had announced his intent to participate in the Turbat sit-in where locals are protesting over the alleged extra-judicial killing of a resident in a CTD encounter when the incident happened.

Read: Pashteen arrested in Chaman

In Mekran division, a shutter-down strike was observed against the arrest of Manzoor Pashteen.

Achakzai also mentioned that Pashteen addressed the Chaman sit-in without the approval of the government. He said the Balochistan home ministry had already imposed a ban on his entry in the province.

On the other hand, a well-known tribal elder was gunned down in a firing incident in Balochistan’s Chaghi district on Tuesday morning.

Levies sources said unidentified armed men opened fire at a vehicle and killed the tribal elder, Haji Saiful Hassani, in Chaghi.

The attackers managed to escape after committing the crime.

Three relatives of the tribal elder traveling in the vehicle with him were also injured in the attack.

The injured were rushed to Quetta for medical treatment. However, the dead body of the tribal elder was shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital, Chaghi.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2023.