Mohammad Ibrahim Arman Loni was a professor of Pashto literature, poet, and one of the founding leaders of (PTM). He was a middle class hardworker citizen a human rights activist, a loving father of 3 daughters and brother of the brave Wranga Loni.
Arman and his sister, Wrranga Loni, participated at a protest sit-in outside Loralai’s Press Club. The four-day sit-in had been held by PTM activists to protest against the 2019 Loralai attack, in which eight policemen and a civilian died after a suicide attack affiliated with the Taliban on January 29, 2019. On 2nd February 2019 when Prof. Loni along other PTM leaders were going to home after a peaceful protest in Loralai, Pakistan Security Agencies and Police officers came and took him on one side. He was beaten by Ex. Pakistan Army Officer and current Assistant Superintendent of Police ASP Atta ur Rehman by the butt of his rifle, Arman immediately made a chain of hands with his fellow comrades but he couldn’t resist the injuries and fell down on the ground. Severely wounded, he was taken to a local hospital, where he died. His family and PTM activists claimed that he was beaten by the police officer.

The police similarly claimed that the death was caused by a heart attack and initially refused to lodge a FIR, which was criticized by Shireen Mazari, the Human Rights Minister of Pakistan. On the other hand, Farhatullah Babar Parliamentarian supported the allegations made by Arman’s family and said that according to their information, the postmortem noted some critical marks in his brain, indicating that the head injury had caused some blood clots in the brain which led to his death.
Later on An (FIR) for the murder was submitted against the prime suspect assistant superintendent of police (ASP) Attaur Rehman Tareen but that officer was on strong ground due to his designation. He was appointed by Pakistani army directly as deportation officers.
This is the worst shape of state terrorism

Balochistan CM Jam Kamal Khan took notice of Arman’s death, PMAP and other allied political parties observed a ‘shutter down’ strike throughout the Pashtun part of Balochistan in protest against the murder of Arman Loni, PTM held widespread protests globaly in reaction to Arman’s murder, during which more than 20 of its activists, including Gulalai Ismail and Abdullah Nangyal, were arrested by Pakistani authorities.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called on Pakistani officials to transparently investigate the death

Arman Loni was a key target of Pakistani army because he was mastermind behind the organizational structure of PTM. And they wanted to remove him to weaken the strength of all those demonstrations being held in 2018 and beginning of 2019
It saddened me when I visualize the day when Wranga Loni was standing beside the dead body of Arman Loni and watching his face and it seems like she is asking him “didn’t we promised that we shall go long way to fight for our nation”.

Wranga Luni Arman”s sister said We had talked about this day. Arman had told me that in the fight for the rights of the Pashtun – God-given and constitutional – we could both be hurt.

Arman Loni mission was to bring end to enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, discriminatory profiling at checkpoints and for our homeland to be cleared of landmines. He wanted an end to attacks by armed groups. His vision was to build more schools, colleges and healthcare which have been demolished by Pakistani army throughout the military operations in the name of war and terror since last decade.

We want peace. But instead of hearing our concerns, we are smeared as “traitors” and “enemies of the state”. They want to silence us for our defiance are the words of Wranga Loni.

We PTM Netherland are campaigning for an independent and credible investigation and the suspected perpetrators to be held accountable.
Yet police cannot be trusted to investigate themselves so we demand from authorities to form an independent joint investigation committee of officers without any influence of Army.

Arman Loni was killed for fighting for our rights… He will be remembered as a first martyred ever of PTM in the history.
Arman will be our Hero forever.

Column by Tariq Alam published on central Asia Analysts Network

#RememberingArmanLoni
#FreeManzoorPashteen
#ReleaseIslamabadProtesters