Avinash Paliwal of the London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in his revealing book My Enemy’s Enemy: India in Afghanistan from the Soviet Union to the US Withdrawal, has confirmed in a way what Pakistan’s Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa has already expressed through his campaign of wire-fencing Pakistan’s western border — the Durand Line.

It appears that Pakistan is no longer concerned about the already-fenced border with India. It is now worried about an Indian-induced ingress from Afghanistan, as demonstrated by the arrest of alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav in Balochistan in 2016.

The “western (border) threat” perception has resulted in the hunting down of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), suspected of being funded by India from across the Durand Line.

On January 25, the police arrested Member National Assembly (MNA) Mohsin Dawar and 30 others as they protested against the detention of MNA Manzoor Pashteen, who had been arrested earlier from Peshawar and accused of using threatening and derogatory language against the state during a gathering in Dera Ismail Khan on January 18.

The PTM arrests have disturbed the civil society in Pakistan and brought the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of Imran Khan under pressure from conscientious objectors to “negotiate with PTM” instead of hunting its members down as “Indian agents”. Dawar and Pashteen agitate for the “rights of ethnic Pashtuns affected by Pakistan’s war against the Taliban in the northwest”.

The PTM was formed in 2016 by a group of eight university students in the northwestern city of Dera Ismail Khan, all eight originally from South Waziristan, most adversely affected by Pakistan’s “hosting” of the Afghan Taliban movement.

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