AT LEAST three people were killed in clashes between Pakistani police and supporters of a rights group advocating for the Pashtun ethnic minority today.

Protesters were angered by a government ban imposed on the Pashtun Protection Movement, claiming that it supports the Pakistani Taliban.

Officers fired tear gas and swung batons to disperse hundreds of protesters who had gathered in the town of Jamrud, near the city of Peshawar, to denounce the ban.

The government also banned rallies by the group in the restive north-west, allegedly because the demonstrations were against the interests of Pakistan.

The Pashtun Protection Movement, which was founded in 2014 after its leaders accused the Pakistani military and local police of abuses against the Pashtuns, denies backing the Pakistani Taliban.

The group also says Pakistani security forces have been illegally detaining its members.

Pakistan’s military and the government have denied all the allegations, saying their operations only target insurgents.

The group has since been waging a campaign to force the military to leave the former tribal regions in the north-west that border Afghanistan.

Ethnic Pashtuns live mainly in eastern and southern Afghanistan but also all across Pakistan, in particular in parts along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Pashtun Protection Movement leader Manzoor Pashteen said that the group does not accept the government ban.

Amnesty International also asked the Pakistan’s government to revoke the ban on the Pashtun group.

The “latest arbitrary ban under over-broad powers of the terror law is only the tip of the iceberg,” deputy regional director Babu Ram Pant said.

He accused the authorities of “resorting to unlawful use of force, enforced disappearances, and media bans on the coverage of protests or rallies.”