SWAT: *A young man was stopped from bringing Pakistan’s flag to the venueof Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement’s rally in Swat on Sunday.
The video of the man being prevented to enter the venue with the flag hassince gone viral, drawing criticism from all quarters. The footage shows anadamant Toor Khan struggling to bring Pakistan’s flag inside the rallyground.
Toor released a video giving his account after the incident and said thathe tried to attend the link>link>link>PTMlink> rally with the national flag but wasdismayed when he was stopped at the entrance by an “organiser”, wearing asurgical mask, barred him from entering the rally with Pakistan’s flag.Accompanied by friends, Toor managed to bring the flag inside later.
“I was stopped at the gate and told I could not bring the flag inside. Itold them that the land and flag belong to Pakistan and I will carry itinside.”
When asked why he was carrying the flag, Toor pointed out that the countryand flag were his and he would obviously wave it. He claimed further thaton camera the organiser appreciated him and stated that he had the right towave the flag but once the camera was off, the organiser advised him tofold and stow the flag. “It may cause unrest,” Toor quoted alink>link>link>PTMlink>organiser as saying.
“For the first time, I felt that I was on someone else’s land – a landwhere I could not identify myself. I felt like an outsider in my owncountry,” the youth said in the video.
“I am a victim of the crisis that hit Swat. My father was kidnapped andkilled by the Taliban,” recalled the Swat resident. Reiterating that heshared the same grievances as link>link>link>PTMlink> , Toor responded to the peopleshowing reservation on his criticism of the gathering by clarifying that hewas not against Pashteen, but those with hidden agendas.
The Swat resident also claimed that only 25 per cent of the public in PTM’srally belonged to Swat. “They were speaking different languages. May bethey were from Waziristan or Afghanistan,” he alleged.
“People were looking at me with dagger eyes when I entered the ground withthe national flag – except those who were from Swat. I was perplexed.”
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