That Pakistan continues to play dirty games in Afghanistan has been proven once again with the brutal murder of Tahir Dawar, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa superintendent of police. The murder flared up a diplomatic row between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The incident also assumes importance due to its association, howsoever indirect it may seem, with the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), which has rattled Pakistan’s security establishment.
When the news of Dawar’s unusual disappearance became headlines, the PTI-led government rubbished the speculations of his abduction. Despite the matter being discussed in Pakistan’s national assembly, there was neither any convincing response nor visible action from the government. More than two weeks later, Dawar’s tortured body was recovered in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.
Tahir Dawar.
As was expected, Pakistan army has hinted at a wider conspiracy by hostile powers behind Dawar’s kidnapping from Pakistan and subsequent murder on Afghan soil. When Asif Ghafoor, the director general of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), suspected the involvement of an entity “more than a terrorist organisation”, it was an obvious allusion to Afghan government agencies, and possibly Indian as well.
But the fact that his body was found in an area not very far from the Torkham border crossing has fuelled many rumours. The most persuasive hypothesis is that Dawar’s torture and murder took place on Pakistani soil and then his dead body was somehow taken across the Durand Line to discredit the Afghan government.
Dawar was among few police officials who bravely fought the terrorism unleashed by Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and ISIS in his province. What intrigues us is that neither the TTP nor ISIS has claimed any responsibility for his murder. Why were anti-establishment slogans heard at his funeral? Because Dawar supported the PTM, as he was upset to see what was happening to his Pashtun brethren.
For more than seven decades of Pakistan’s existence, its ruling elites have dreaded ethnic nationalism. In order to justify Pakistan’s creation as a separate nation-state for South Asian Muslims , it has been a state-sanctioned policy to force its ethnically diverse population to adopt an Islamic identity.
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Divided between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Pashtuns inhabit one of the most prized geopolitical locations in the contemporary world. While some Pashtun movements have sought autonomy within Pakistan, others saw Pakistan merely as an extension of British imperialism after independence in 1947 and even supported an-ill defined independent ‘Pashtunistan’. While Kabul does not recognise the Durand Line as an international border, Islamabad insists upon its legality while seeking to dominate Afghan politics by hosting Islamist forces – including the Taliban.
Another raison d’être of Pakistan is manifested in its inflexibility towards India, and the belief that India represents an existential threat to Pakistan. Islamabad’s policy of looking at Kabul from the anti-India prism has made the lives of millions of Pashtuns a living hell. Pakistan’s politicking between different insurgent networks has antagonised the Pashtuns. For instance, the ISI had pitched the Peshawar Shura against the Quetta Shura, it held Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders in Pakistan while sending fighters to the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan. These manipulative actions, coupled with repressive military campaigns in south and north Waziristan against friends-turned-foes, have dented Pakistan’s image among Pashtun tribes in the volatile border areas.
Caught in the murky geopolitics of the Afghan conflict, the ordinary Pashtuns have been paying for Pakistan’s Machiavellian games with their lives. An unaccounted for number of Pashtuns have been subjected to extrajudicial killings and arbitrary detentions by Pakistan’s security forces. Thousands have fled their homes to safer places. The PTM has been fighting for their dignity and social rights.
Despite government restrictions and a media blackout, the PTM has been successfully organising huge rallies in various parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. However, the pro-establishment media and scholars continue to treat the PTM as being engineered by supporters of Pashtunistan, as well as rival agencies such as the National Directorate of Security (NSD) of Afghanistan and the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) of India.
Dawar’s open support to the PTM was causing huge embarrassment to the credibility of Pakistan’s security establishment. It seems reasonable to argue that since no disciplinary action against him was possible given his impressive professional credentials, the only convenient way to silence him was to eliminate him physically. And if, Afghanistan and India could also be blamed in the process, Pakistan’s military-intelligence complex could hardly be expected to resist doing so.
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The Afghan Taliban has also been systematically carrying out assassinations of senior anti-Taliban Afghan personalities, with not-so-secret support from Pakistan’s security establishment. The aim is to weaken the Afghan government’s morale and extend control in specific areas. In particular, the Taliban-claimed crash of an Afghan Army helicopter in the Farah Province on October 31 led to the death of at least 25 military and civilian officials, including Fareed Bakhtawar, who was considered to be a bulwark against a potential Taliban takeover of Farah. Just two days before the October 20 parliamentary elections, the Taliban claimed an attack which killed General Abdul Raziq, the influential anti-Taliban police chief of southern Kandahar Province.
In order to prevent the misuse of Afghan territory for terrorism against India, New Delhi has spent a considerable amount of effort and money in the country. But what is really surprising is that India has achieved very little for all its efforts; there has been far more projection than substance. Pakistani security establishment’s loss of prestige among the Pashtuns had allowed India the political space to capitalise on anti-Pakistani sentiments. However, New Delhi does not have many options in Afghanistan, and its pursuit of the Pashtun option has not gone beyond the occupant of Afghan presidency and his coterie.
One cannot deny that New Delhi, which has been publicly averse to deal with the Afghan Taliban, has not made earnest efforts to cultivate those Pashtuns who are against the Kabul government. When Pakistan remains actively and adversely involved in Afghan politics, India’s soft approach has not yielded tangible outcomes.
Building vital infrastructure projects is very good, but has not helped India in advancing its core security interests in Afghanistan. New Delhi must begin developing new contacts and reviving the old ones among Pashtuns living on both sides of the Durand Line at a time when the latter are getting growingly alienated and hateful towards Pakistan’s security establishment.