Pakistan arrests second Pashtun lawmaker over attack on army

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A Pakistani provincial spokesman says authorities have arrested the second lawmaker behind an alleged attack a military post earlier this week.

Shaukat Yousafzai, a spokesman in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, says parliament member Mohsin Dawar was captured in a raid Thursday in North Waziristan.

Ethnic tensions with minority Pashtuns have recently flared up in the area.

Dawar and another legislator, Ali Wazir, are accused of leading an attack Sunday by protesters that set off a shootout there. Three activists were killed and five troops were wounded. A soldier was killed in a similar disturbance at another post nearby.

Wazir was arrested but Dawar fled at the time.

The two lawmakers represent a Pashtun group which denounces what it says is the military’s excessive use of force against local tribesmen.