SRINAGAR: The day IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was captured, Pakistani security officials began holding “jirgas” (meetings) with ethnic Pashtun leaders in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), asking them to raise a tribal militia.

The move is significant in view of the fact that Pakistan’s first attempt to invade Kashmir involved tribal militia. In October 1947,

sent tribal raiders to invade Jammu and Kashmir which was at the time ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh.

The tribal invaders, who committed massive atrocities in Kashmir, were resisted and repulsed by native

under the leadership of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah while New Delhi sent its forces after Hari Singh signed the instrument of accession with India. Since the first Indo-Pak war post-independence, the Pakistan Army has been propagating the view that Kashmir is “the unfinished agenda of the Partition”.

On Tuesday, Pashtun sources based in KPK told TOI that though “Pakistani security officials asked ethnic Pashtun elders and tribal leaders to form ‘defence militias and peace committees’, it is not an ordinary development. Pakistan has a history of using civilians for its wars against Afghanistan and India.”

When tensions along the Line of Control escalated with the dogfight between Indian and Pakistani fighter jets on February 27, officials from Pakistan’s paramilitary forces and the government held meetings with Pashtun elders in various parts of KPK province, including in the merged tribal areas formerly known as

(FATA).

Sources said the Pakistan Army returned weapons to Marwat and Betani tribesmen after having them seized two years ago in the wake of clashes between tribes in the southern Lakki Marwat district of KPK. On February 27, brigade commander Brigadier Waqas Zafar Raja and some other officials held a meeting with local elders and officials, Pakistan’s English daily Dawn had reported on February 28.

The commander of the Swat Scouts,

Tahir Khattak, held a jirga with tribal elders from towns in Khyber and Mohmand tribal districts on February 28. In Bajaur tribal district, the Pakistan Army’s sector commander, Brigadier Naeem

Raja, and the civilian administrator, Usman Mehsud, urged the tribal and religious elders to support the armed forces of the country, sources said.

All the so-called “defence committees” which the Pakistan Army raised in FATA and Swat in 2008 and 2009, sources said, were on their payrolls and were pro-Taliban. Sources said many tribals have already registered their names with the officials and have consented to fight along with the military in case a war breaks out between India and Pakistan.

However, sources said the Pakistan Army has been facing a serious challenge from Pashtun youth, who are rallying behind Manzoor Pashteen, a popular ethnic leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz (Protection) Movement (PTM) which is opposed to the Pakistan Army’s military campaigns in the region.