On 21 March 2021, a mass grave containing the mutilated corpses of four teenage boys was found by a shepherd's dog in the Janikhel area of Bannu District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
As the locals, including the victims’ relatives, dug up the bodies, one was found to have been beheaded,[3][4][5] one had been shot, and the other two had been stoned to death.
[11] Manzoor Pashteen and Mohsin Dawar, leaders of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), were taken into custody by the police in Kohat and Karak, respectively, to prevent them from travelling to Bannu to join and lead the long march.
[13] On 31 May, Malik Naseeb Khan, one of the tribal chiefs of Janikhel, was assassinated by militants, which sparked another wave of protest.
[16][17] On 27 June, the tribesmen ended the 27-day protest after the authorities released four missing men from Janikhel who had been victims of enforced disappearance.
[16] According to local journalists, the four boys had also been kidnapped during the previous year by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) when they went hunting in a similar way.
[6] The locals refused to bury the dead bodies and started a protest sit-in outside a military fort in Janikhel.
He added: "The government should identify the killers, arrest and punish them, and ask those responsible for security, because there are checkpoints near where the bodies were found.