In a heartbreaking scene outside the Hyderabad Press Club, the mother of Chanda Maharaj—a minor Hindu girl abducted and handed over to her kidnapper by court order—is demanding her daughter’s safe return. For two years, Chanda’s mother has fought for justice while her daughter remains missing, last seen with Shaman Magsi, a man implicated in her abduction, yet inexplicably granted custody over her by the court. Despite repeated appeals, the mother’s pleas have been met with silence from the authorities, underscoring the terrifying reality faced by Pakistan’s Hindu minority.

Chanda Maharaj’s case is emblematic of the injustices inflicted on Pakistan’s minority communities, particularly Hindus, whose young girls are abducted, raped, forcibly converted, and subjected to marriages under duress. Even institutions, including the courts and law enforcement, appear complicit in perpetuating the abuse rather than providing protection. The court’s decision to hand Chanda over to her kidnapper reflects a system that seems indifferent to the suffering of minorities, often subjecting them to legal structures that effectively sanction their persecution.

In yet another heinous act of violence, Punjabi Pak Army fired mortar shells into the Shaktoi village in Upper Waziristan’s tehsil Sharkai at 11 a.m. on 9 Nov, killing two innocent children and injuring another. This latest atrocity follows a disturbing pattern of targeted attacks on civilians by the Pakistan Army, reminiscent of the recent shelling in Khyber Terah just a day earlier.

The mortar fire is deliberately aimed at the civilian population. The repeated targeting of children and livestock, raises serious questions about the intentions behind these brutal assaults. In stark contrast, the shells never seem to hit the terrorists or Pakistan Army personnel, this shows that these attacks are truly meant to instill fear among the already suffering civilian populace.

The Pakistan Army’s reckless shelling of civilian areas has become a grotesque tactic aimed at intimidating and displacing the local population. This marks yet another chapter in the long history of the military’s violent oppression in regions like Waziristan, where Pak Army have long been perpetrating atrocities to silence Pashtuns and to facilitate their mass eviction and seize control of the mineral-rich lands predominantly owned by Pashtuns.

On November 7, a tragic incident unfolded in the Tirah Valley of Khyber district, where a mortar shell struck a group of children returning home from school, killing one young student and leaving five others seriously injured. This incident has deepened concerns over the Punjabi Pak Army’s attempts to obstruct the return of the displaced Kukikhel Pashtun community, who have been fighting for years to reclaim their homeland after being forced out in 2013 due to military operations.

The Pak Army has been actively discouraging Kukikhel internally displaced Pashtuns (IDPs) from returning to their homes. When local leader Malik Naseer Koki Khel and the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) advocated for the Kukikhel community’s right to return, the Army initially resisted, only relenting after sustained pressure. Now, however, the Army is using intimidation tactics to scare the people back into displacement.

For weeks, the Kukikhel have reported instances of Punjabi Pak Army-backed intimidation, with local homes coming under sporadic fire, and recent events escalating into the fatal mortar attack on schoolchildren. These actions are deliberate tactics designed to instill fear and disrupt the resettlement process, undermining their hard-won right to return. Despite a formal agreement reached in the October 11 jirga allowing Kukikhel Pashtuns to come back, the Army continues to throw obstacles in their path, resorting to various forms of harassment to deter their return.

Pak Army’s Mortar Shelling Strategy

This brutal crackdown on the Kukikhel community highlights a much larger issue faced by displaced Pashtuns across the region. Since their forced displacement in 2013, the Kukikhel people, like many other Pashtun IDPs, have fought tirelessly to return to their ancestral homes. The plight of these displaced communities is a direct result of Pakistan’s flawed policies, which have seen Pashtuns used as pawns in military operations under the guise of counterterrorism. The military’s interference in their resettlement only deepens the humanitarian crisis that continues to unfold in FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The Kukikhel Pashtuns’ forced displacement and continued suffering echo a broader pattern of marginalization and repression faced by Pashtuns under the Paki establishment. The military’s heavy-handed tactics in Tirah Valley reflect a deliberate disregard for the rights and well-being of its own citizens, with the occupied-government showing little interest in resolving the suffering of these communities. In their calls for justice and the right to resettle in their ancestral lands, the Kukikhel are once again met with resistance and violence, with the Pashtun Protection Movement (PTM) vowing to bring international attention to the injustices faced by the Pashtun community in Pakistan.