Pakistani minority leader, who criticised Army, held for 'sedition'

Peshawar: A 27-year-old Pakistani Pashtun minority leader, known for criticising the country's powerful military, was arrested on Monday for alleged sedition, media reports said.

Manzoor Pashteen, chief of the rights-based alliance Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), attended a gathering on January 18 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Dera Ismail Khan city where he had allegedly said that the 1973 Constitution violated basic human rights, Dawn newspaper reported.

He was arrested along with nine other PTM workers from Peshawar, police said.

The PTM has been critical of the Army's policies in the restive northwestern tribal areas where a massive operation against terrorists was carried out in recent years, leading to large-scale displacement and enforced disappearances, the report said.

It also calls for ending extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and unlawful detentions besides holding the practitioners responsible.

The PTM chief has been booked for criminal intimidation, promoting enmity between different groups, criminal conspiracy, sedition and condemning the creation of the country and advocating the abolishment of its sovereignty, the report said.