Pashtun activists stage protests across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa against Rao Anwar's acquittal
Jan 27, 2023
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa [Pakistan], January 27 : Deeply angered over the acquittal of former Senior Superintendent Rao Anwar in the Naqeebullah Mehsud murder case, members of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) staged protests across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dawn reported on Thursday.
A protest was held in Swat in front of the press club. President of the PTM local chapter Mir Inam Khan led the demonstration, and Waqif Khan, Aftab Khan, Abid Jan, Samiul Haq, Dr Khalid Mehmood, and Attorney Ataullah Jan also spoke.
The demonstrators carried signs and banners with slogans against the release of Rawo Anwar and 17 other suspects in the murder of Naqeebullah Mehsud, as per Dawn.
Notably, the extrajudicial killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud, a budding model from the ex-FATA region in 2018 by Senior Superintendent Rao Anwar galvanized the Pashtun community and institutionalized its collective efforts into the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) under Manzoor Pashteen's leadership.
During the rallies, the speakers said that Naqeebullah Mehsud was murdered brutally. "We are not against the state, but against the wrong decision of the state institutions. We will not tolerate such injustice and wrong decision by any court," they said, according to Dawn.
Anwar, along with around two dozen of his subordinates, has been charged with killing the aspiring model from South Waziristan and three others after dubbing them "Taliban" in a "fake shoot-out" on January 13, 2018.
The matter was investigated under the direct supervision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. So-called "encounter killings" are common in Pakistan.
