Pak's much glorified Operation "Zarb e Azb" victimizing Pashtuns not militants

The activists have said that Pakistan's Operation "Zarb-e-Azb", which was against militant groups, has destroyed the homes of the locals instead of terrorists and has victimized the Pashtun community.

The International Forum for Rights of Pakistan hosted a seminar at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva earlier this week on the human rights violations caused by the Pakistani Army under the garb of Operation Zarb-e-Azb.

Speakers at the conference included Afghani human rights activist Faiz Mohd Zaland, Member of the Senate of Polish Parliament Jacek Wlocowicz , Executive Director of South Asia Democratic Forum Paulo Casaca , Executive Director Baluchistan House Tarek Fateh and Baluch Representative at the UNHRC Mehran Marri.

In his remarks at the conference, Zaland stated that the Pakistan Army and its intelligence agencies had victimized the Pashtuns, who were living in North and South Waziristan, adding that the military operation had only destroyed the homes of the local people and not the terrorists as claimed by the Pakistani Government.

He pointed that with UN agencies and the world media denied access to the areas of the operation, the Pakistan Government had ensured that these atrocities did not come out in the open.

Wlocowicz in his speech said that though the Pakistan Army had left no stone unturned to project that the operation was a success, this was actually one of the worst humanitarian crisis witnessed, forcing more than two million people leave their homes.

He added that what was more concerning was the Pakistani Government's statement that the offensive would not end till all terrorists were eliminated, thereby turning it into an indefinite process.

He said that the Pakistan Government was barely taking any concrete and substantial initiatives to rehabilitate refugees in the region, let alone acknowledge the lives lost in the humanitarian crisis that had engulfed the region.

Echoing similar sentiments, Mehran Marri said that the operation had been launched to protect the Haqqani network and what Pakistan described as the good Taliban. He charged Pakistan of being linked to 75 per cent of the terror incidents in the world.

Tarek Fateh in his statement informed that the Pakistan Army had started the operation to kill its own citizens in order to ensure the smooth exit of nearly 2000 Central Asian and Chechen terrorists to move to Syria to join the ISIS. He warned that if not checked, Pakistan would become a threat to the citizens of Europe and America.