Enforced disappearance
Two PTM activists vanish after a government peace jirga
Hanif Pashteen and Noor Ullah Tareen were taken into custody in Peshawar on 12 November 2025 after attending an event convened by the provincial government. Their whereabouts remain undisclosed.
· By My Safe Voice
On 12 November 2025, a delegation of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement attended a "Peace Jirga" organised by the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Peshawar. The delegation, invited as community representatives, was not permitted to present its views and boycotted the session.
As the group left the premises, police intercepted them. According to witnesses cited by Amnesty International, the Peshawar Capital City Police Officer ordered seven members of the delegation into police vehicles. Among them were Hanif Pashteen and Noor Ullah Tareen.
Seven members were taken. As of Amnesty's reporting, Hanif Pashteen and Noor Ullah Tareen remained held, their whereabouts undisclosed and no charges communicated to their families.
A disappearance witnessed in public
What makes this case unusual is the setting. This was not a night raid or a masked abduction on a highway. It was a detention in the middle of a city, in front of a government event, on a day when officials were present and the movement was, nominally, a guest of the province. The chief minister at the time, Sohail Afridi, publicly condemned the disappearances and asked the provincial military leadership to look into them, calling the act "against Pakhtun norms."
His statement is itself evidence: when even a sitting chief minister says publicly that two men have been taken and that he does not control where they are, the ordinary fiction that disappearances are isolated "missing persons" cases collapses.
Enforced disappearance violates the rights to liberty and to a fair trial, and raises grave concerns for the person's safety. Secret detention heightens the risk of torture or other ill-treatment.
The pattern around the case
The November detentions came shortly after the federal government had proscribed the PTM in October 2024 and as legal pressure on its members continued.
Human-rights organisations have repeatedly tied these cases to a deliberate use of unchecked detention against a movement that has never been shown to have committed a violent act. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan made the same point when the ban was imposed, observing that the PTM had "always used the framework of the Constitution to advocate its cause."
If this is happening to your family
Record everything immediately: who was present, the time, the vehicles, the officer involved, the exact words used. Then register an FIR for kidnapping and file a habeas corpus petition, bearing in mind the constraints courts apply. Read If a relative is disappeared and Habeas corpus explained.
Sources
- Amnesty International, Urgent Action 44.26: "Pakistan: End enforced disappearance of activists," on Hanif Pashteen and Noor Ullah Tareen.
- "CM condemns 'disappearance' of banned PTM workers", Dawn, 14 November 2025.