Manzoor Pashteen finally said what had already been known for some time and was often discussed in select Pashtun gatherings. In a carefully worded tweet the founder of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) blamed the Pakistani regime for engineering blasts at a mosque in Peshawar that killed more than 90 people and seriously injured over 150 in order to extort money from both China and the US. The reference to Pakistan Army or to the Paki regime is implicit yet the words make it amply clear that its Rawalpindi that’s being referred to by the Pashtun leader.

“Unrest will be created, there will be explosions, talk will reach CPEC. Then Money will be taken from China because CPEC has been damaged by terrorism, so we need to crush it. And then Dollars will be taken from America (US) that we have to build more so that CPEC fails. So kill one and build two to keep the business going,” said Manzoor Pashteen in his Urdu tweet (see below) soon after the Peshawar bomb blasts on Monday. The second last line in Pashteen’s rather cryptic tweet could either mean asking dollar donations for strengthening Taliban’s terrorist network or building supporting infrastructure which can be detrimental to CPEC’s success. In the last line Manzoor Pashteen clearly said that these sponsored terrorist attacks by the Pakistan Army are only a means for the Pakis to mint money.

Using sponsored terrorist attacks on its own citizens is not something new for the rogue Pakistan Army. On December 16, 2014 six armed ‘Taliban terrorists’ entered the Army Public School (APS) at Peshawar and opened fire inside the school premises killing around 150 people that included 132 school children. Immediately after this attack, the ISPR– Pakistan Army’s public relations wing– launched a worldwide campaign to prove that Pakistan itself is a victim of terror and they desperately need funds to fight Islamic extremism and Taliban’s terror attacks. Later on Pashtuns came to know that this entire operation was planned by GHQ Rawalpindi that used its proxy TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban) to massacre school children at Peshawar. “The APS school is located inside military cantonment and one has cross through numerous check posts to reach inside. It is impossible for TTP terrorists to carry heavy guns and ammunition inside APS Peshawar unless an until they were actively helped by top brass of Pakistan Army,” revealed Khan in a conversation with this reporter. Khan is a Pashtun and gave only his last name. His only child was killed in the 2014 APS Peshawar massacre.

Pakistan Army has always used Pashtuns as cannon fodder for their sinister gambit across South Asia. Indoctrinated Pashtun youth were sent to wage jihad against India in Jammu Kashmir and to fix Rawalpindi’s foes in Afghanistan. All Paki regimes whether military dictatorship or the Rawalpindi-backed civilian governments, propped up at Islamabad, followed the policy to exploit Pashtuns in the name of Islam. The Panjabi officers in Pakistan Army built business empires at the expense of AK-47 wielding Pashtuns, who were subsequently getting killed.

Over the years ‘enforced disappearance’ was followed as a state policy to weed out Pashtuns who dared to oppose Rawalpindi. It was in this backdrop that Manzoor Pashteen formed Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), a non-political unarmed nonviolent organisation that works for the protection of Pashtuns.

When Pashtuns started rallying behind Manzoor Pashteen the Pakistan Army tried to mislead PTM in the name of negotiations. In yet another tweet after the Monday Peshawar blasts Manzoor Pashteen laid bare this nefarious gambit of Rawalpindi. “Armed organizations were infiltrated in different areas in the name of negotiations. When we held rallies against it, propaganda was started (against us). We kept shouting that ground is being prepared for war, in the name of peace. Over the last 20 years ago, the blood of Pashtuns is being shed in the name of negotiations, explosions and operations,” said Manzoor Pashteen in his Urdu tweet (see below).

Just a day before the Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attack at Peshawar mosque, a ‘missing persons’ camp was set up at Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa by the family members of Pashtuns who have been forcibly disappeared by Pakistani forces over the last several years. “No Pakistani state institution or government institution has shown seriousness to solve the issue of Pashtun missing persons,” said Manzoor Pashteen. In fact, Pakistani regime uses ‘enforced disappearance’ as a state policy to curb dissent. Several hundred thousand Baloch, Sindhi, Kashmiri and Pashtuns have been abducted by Pakistani forces over the last decade whose whereabouts are are still unknown. The family members of these unfortunate ‘missing persons’ do not even know if their dear ones are dead or are languishing in any Pakistani jail.