Arif Wazir (Pashto: محمد عارف افغان وزیر; 2 May 1982 – 2 May 2020) was a Pakistani politician, activist, and a leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM).
[5][6] Wazir's family was long active in the Pashtun nationalist movement and opposed to the Talibanization of the former tribal areas, earning them the militants' enmity.
His father (Saadullah Jan), two brothers (Ibrahim and Ishaq), two uncles (Malik Mirzalam and Feroz Khan) and two cousins (Tariq and Farooq Wazir) were all murdered in targeted killings, and he also survived assassination attempts himself.
[12] However, when a reporter requested the information minister Shibli Faraz to share progress about finding the murderers, he declined, saying "I don't know the details" of Wazir's assassination.
[13] PTM claimed that “state-sponsored militants” and the so-called "good Taliban" were responsible for the assassination, and held widespread protests during which several of its activists, including Gilaman Wazir and Nadeem Askar, were arrested by Pakistani authorities.
[3] On 14 March 2022, the Pashtun National Jirga in Bannu demanded that Wazir's death be investigated by a credible judicial commission headed by Justice Qazi Faez Isa, and that the report be made public.
[17] In 2016, the government demolished his family's market in Wanna with dynamite under the Frontier Crimes Regulation, which authorized collective punishment, after a bomb killed an army officer.
[18] In an opinion article for The Diplomat, Ali Wazir discussed the incident: "While local officials admitted to me that it was an accident and we were not to blame, they nevertheless destroyed our livelihoods under the Frontier Crimes Regulation."
[20] The Election Commission of Pakistan ordered the administration to immediately release Wazir and Iqbal Masud, declaring that their arrests were "tantamount to pre-poll rigging" in favor of other candidates.
PTM supporters protested against the arrests in front of press clubs in Peshawar, Quetta, Swat, Swabi, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Zhob, Loralai, Killa Saifullah, Ziarat, Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, and other cities.
[6][23][24][25] On 19 June 2019, Wazir was arrested by the Deputy Commissioner of South Waziristan, just a month before taking part in the provincial election as independent candidate.
[34] A local senior journalist, on condition of anonymity, told his sources confirmed that the attack was carried out by the Nazir Group, a faction of Taliban militants which operated in South Waziristan.
Mohsin Dawar added: “Even though the military imposed a curfew in the area, but it has not discouraged the people from coming out and expressing their support for the PTM.”[36] PTM leader Manzoor Pashteen also claimed that the attackers were backed by the Pakistan Army and intelligence agencies.
[42] His body was carried to his native village Ghawa Khwa in Wanna, where he was buried after the Islamic funeral prayer for him on 3 May, which was attended by tens of thousands of mourners despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
[12] The inspector-general (IG) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police, Sanaullah Abbasi, said that Wazir was assassinated because of his recent interview to a private Afghan channel in Kabul.
[11] In March 2020, Arif and several other PTM leaders, including Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar, had traveled to Kabul as they were invited by the Government of Afghanistan to participate at President Ashraf Ghani’s oath-taking ceremony at the Arg presidential palace.