This was the size of #StudentsSolidarityMarch in Feb '19. Video above shows how quickly it grew by Nov '19. That growth was due to the effort of student organizers & increase in student grievances but also due to mentoring by academics like Ammar Ali Jan.
Lahore's #StudentsSolidarityMarch gave a platform to #AlamgirWazir, an activist from the Pashtun Council in Punjab Uni, to articulate his grievances about army's role in FATA. It's this kind of cross-ethnic, cross-class solidarity that most irks Generals.
That's why Ammar Ali Jan is in trouble. They've done this before to another academic, who was vocal on Baloch rights & threatened him that if he wanted to stay safe, he should leave Pakistan & if he returned, he should stop speaking about Balochistan. We know about Sabeen's fate.
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"In 2014, Pakistani national Hafiz Saeed Khan was chosen to spearhead IS-K province as its first emir. Khan, a veteran Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan commander, brought along other prominent TTP members—including the group’s spokesman Sheikh Maqbool..." csis.org/programs/trans…
"IS-K’s early membership included a contingent of Pakistani militants who emerged in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province around 2010, just across the border from the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan."
"Many of these militants were estranged members of TTP and Lashkar-e Islam, who had fled Pakistan to escape pressure from security forces. The appointment of Khan as IS-K’s first emir, and former Taliban commander Abdul Rauf Khadim as his deputy,"
Meanwhile, I came to know through social media that you told members of parliament during the in-camera briefing on “National Security” that if I apologized to you, then I would be released! (2)
Isn't it a blatant violation of the constitution that you are the head of an institution that is subordinate to a government ministry, that receives salaries from citizens’ taxes and the national treasury, and yet it not only interferes in political and judicial matters... (3)
What's even more vile is potentially covering for the suspected killers & saying that the investigation is a "sensitive matter" whose details couldn't be disclosed. Tahir Dawar's son, @AmjidDawar, called for an international inquiry as the govt wasn't pursuing the investigation.
When he first disappeared, the details of which @AzazSyed shared in his column below, a PTI spokesman said that it was fake news & that he'd soon return safely:
His body was later found with torture marks in Afghanistan close to a Pakistani check-post.
According to Azaz Syed's story, Tahir Dawar had arrested militants transporting ammunition to Afghanistan. He resisted pressure "from above" to release them, though his senior officer eventually did.
Not only did ISI tell Justice Qazi Faez Isa that it didn't have the mandate to investigate TLP's finances (when it has assumed the mandate for literally everything else) but Chief Justice Nisar delayed the hearing for 5 months enabling TLP's electoral rise. All roads lead to GHQ.
"ISI did not disclose the 'source of livelihood, place of work, address, funding'...of the TLP leadership...we had inquired whether they paid income tax or had bank accounts. ISI responded...that it did not have the mandate to gather such information." dawn.com/news/1462177
Justice Isa asked why CJ Saqib Nisar delayed the Faizabad case hearing until after 2018 elections: