The contrast couldn’t be starker. At Davos, Pakistan’s Chief of Defence Forces [CDF] Field Marshal Asim Munir was savouring the pride of having been recognised by US President Donald Trump after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif indicated towards him during the Board of Peace  signing ceremony being touted an initiative that would end the woes of Palestinians in Gaza. At the same time back home, the Pakistan army was subjecting the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s [KP] Tirah Valley to extreme privation by ordering them to vacate their homes during peak winter.

As per media reports, the Pakistan army had set January 25 as a deadline for the evacuation of Tirah and social media is flooded with live reports of this exodus and the heartrending accounts of the hapless evacuees. Quoting a “senior government official” speaking on condition of anonymity, Arab News has even provided details of one-time financial assistance and monthly stipend that each displaced family would be given by the government as well as compensation for houses that may get damaged during the ensuing fight with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan [TTP] militants. 

Needless to say, the Pakistan army’s ill-considered decision of forcing Tirah residents to leave their homes and hearths during harsh winters has drawn widespread criticism. In its report on this issue, Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty has quoted Peshawar-based political analyst Riffatullah Orakzai saying that there have been 22 major military operations in North Western Pakistan and “in many cases, militants simply vacate an area before a military operation and return to the same area after the army departs.” 

This issue generated a heated debate in the KP assembly. Disapproving of the decision of “vacating the whole of Tirah Valley in this freezing cold,” Mahmood Khan Achakzai, a Pashtun regionalist politician and........

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