Pak arrests absconding Pashtun legislator over attack on military post

Pakistani authorities on Thursday arrested an absconding Pashtun lawmaker who was allegedly involved in the attack on a military post in which five soldiers were injured. Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) leader and parliament member Mohsin Dawar was arrested from North Waziristan, said Shaukat Yousafzai, a spokesman in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.

The PTM, which works for the rights of local Pushtu-speaking people, is against, what it claims, the military's excessive use of force against local tribesmen. Dawar and Ali Wazir, also a legislator, allegedly led the attack on Sunday by protestors in North Waziristan on a security check-post that resulted in the death of three activists and injuries to 15 persons, including five soldiers.

Wazir and seven other attackers were arrested on the same day of the incident, but Dawar fled from the spot. The army had said that they wanted to exert pressure for the release of suspected terrorists' facilitator who was recently arrested.

It said that the troops at the check post exercised maximum restraint in the face of provocation and direct firing on the post. The army said that the PTM group is supported by anti-Pakistan elements from across the border in Afghanistan.