Islamabad, Jan 26 (IANS) The Pakistani Army, which dominates the country’s domestic and foreign affairs, has been accused of widespread human rights violations in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, long-plagued by militancy and dozens of Pakistani military operations since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, a report said on Monday.

It added that over the past two decades, major military offensives targetting militants have killed civilians as well as insurgents and displaced millions.

According to a report in the Eurasia Review, tens of thousands of people have left the Tirah valley in KP, travelling in crammed cars and packed buses ahead of a planned military operation against suspected militants in the region.

“The Pakistani Army has set a January 25 deadline for the evacuation of Tirah, a valley of some 150,000 people near the border with Afghanistan. The strategic area is a stronghold of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) extremist group, which is waging an increasingly potent insurgency against Islamabad,” the report noted.

“I have a shop, which was my source of living. That shop is gone now and so are my earnings. What should I do now?” Eurasia Review quoted Saeed Khan as saying, who rented a truck to transport 22 members of his extended family and their belongings from Tirah.

According to the report, Khan is among the 80,000 people who have so far left Tirah, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. Additionally, it said, many residents voice opposition to the planned army offensive, describing the evacuation as “chaotic and dangerous”.

Another resident, Ihsanullah, in his mid-20s, who left Tirah with his extended family, was quoted as saying by Eurasia Review: “My family includes women and children, and the weather is running below zero during the night.”

“One of my children became sick. I requested the security personnel to open the road for us as my child’s condition was getting worse. They said they were not allowed to open the road. My child died,” Ihsanullah added.

Mahmood Khan Achakzai, a Pakistani lawmaker and opposition leader in the National Assembly of Pakistan, addressing the house on January 19, said, “For the past 20 years, people are being forced to leave their areas where they had been living for thousands of years.”

“Now they are vacating the whole of Tirah Valley in this freezing cold. Is it not terrorism to force people out of their homes? For God’s sake, don’t do this,” he added.

Sohail Afridi, the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province from the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, said he had “never supported the operation,” and claimed that the planned army offensive was “imposed by the barrel of a gun.”

–IANS

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