Peshawar: A cleric from Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has been arrested for slamming the Pakistan Army for its brutality and vowing to back India if the two countries go to war.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is in northwestern Pakistan, boarding Afghanistan. The Pakistani government is facing stiff resistance in that region from outfits like the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) that is not part of the Afghan Taliban, but shares the same ideology. ADVERTISEMENT

In a video that has been widely circulated, the cleric, identified as Maulvi Gulzar of Mardan, says: “Hindus have not treated us as cruelly as Pakistani soldiers have treated us in jail. If India attacks Pakistan, we will support India because of the cruelty of the Pakistani government.”

He goes on to accuse Pakistani soldiers of “i

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