Haji Sher Muhammad, a tribal leader in Mir Ali, North Waziristan, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen near a Pakistani army headquarters on Tuesday afternoon.
He is the grandson of Haji Mirza Ali Khan, the leader of the Atmanzo tribe of North Waziristan and a militant figure, who was nicknamed Ipi Faqir by the people.
Haji Sher Muhammad fought for the unity of all the tribes in North and South Waziristan apart from his own tribe during the tribal leadership and for the last two years he stood against the decision of the government of Pakistan, which was regarding mining in Waziristan.
The patriarchs of Waziristan believed that Haji Sher Mohammad was a demander of the rights of the people in the mines of Waziristan and did not allow the Pakistani government to arbitrarily mine without giving the rights to the people.
The members of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement call Haji Sher Mohammad’s terror a conspiracy and said that the leading tribal leaders in the tribal areas are being targeted in order to harm the tribal unity and weaken the people ethnically.
They criticized that after the targeted killings, the assailants flee the area and the Pakistani security forces do not try to capture them.
A member of the Pashtun Tahafuz movement, Alam Zaib Masoud, said: “A car came here and targeted three people, two of them killed and one wounded. These are the bullets that we got from the sense of the incident; here is the army headquarters and the civilian hospital and the attackers flee the area safely.”
The terror of Haji Sher Mohammad has triggered the reactions of the former Afghan president Hamid Karzai and other prominent figures.
Hamid Karzai called it a great loss at the national level.
Karzai added on Twitter: “It is with great sadness that I received the news that the tribal leader and philanthropist Haji Sher Muhammad Wazir has been martyred by militants in Mir Ali region of North Waziristan. The death of Haji Sher Muhammad Wazir is a great loss.”
This is not the first incident of terror of tribal leaders in North and South Waziristan. In addition to these areas, in many other tribal areas, the tribal leaders who demand the rights of the people have been targeted.
Local people and tribal leaders blame the Pakistan Army and claimed that they are behind the targeted killings of tribal leaders and local activists and have not made any effort to prevent it.
