Amid FATF meet, terrorists in Pakistan kills four Pashtun women activists

As the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) begin its meeting on the fate of Pakistan, a group of terrorists ambushed a vehicle carrying women activists from a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in a former northwestern tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The attack – in which four of them were killed and the driver was injured – took place in the village of Epi in Mir Ali, a town in the North Waziristan district on Monday.

Taking to Twitter, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said: “The state must bring to book the perpetrators of this heinous crime. The re-emergence of terror groups in the area is a matter of grave concern.”

“It is the responsibility of the authorities to protect the lives and property of citizens at all costs. HRCP shares the grief of the families and colleagues of the four women who lost their lives”, it added.

In a tweet, Pashtun human rights activist Gulalai Ismail said that the murder of the activist is so outrageous that it should spark countrywide protests.

“The murder of four women; Javaria, Naheed, Ayesha and Irshad by the terrorists is so outrageous that it should spark countrywide protests. If it did not then it means our mother tongue and National tongue is only “SILENCE”.”

Afrasiab Khattak, Senator of the Kohat Division of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province in a tweet said, “Latest terrorist attack on women social activists in Waziristan is a tragic result of Pakistani support for Talibanization on both sides of the DL. Even after 3 years of its merger, the former FATA’s governance has yet to be transferred to civilians. The area remains a black hole”.

Pakistan is unlikely to exit the ‘grey list’ of the FATF, the global watchdog for money laundering and terror financing, as some European countries have taken the stand that Islamabad has not fully implemented all the points of a plan of action set by it.

In the last plenary held in October 2020, the FATF concluded that Pakistan will continue in its ‘grey list’ till February 2021 as it has failed to fulfill six out of 27 obligations of the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog that include failure to take action against two of India’s most wanted terrorists – Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar and Jamaat-ud-Dawah head Hafiz Saeed.