Ahrar ul Hind (Urdu: احرار الہند; lit. freedom fighters of India) was a militant Islamist group in Pakistan that split from the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in February 2014. During peace talks between the Pakistani government and TTP, Ahrar-ul-Hind issued a statement to the media rejecting the talks,[1] and announcing that they would not accept any peace agreement. Following its initial announcement, the group claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in Pakistan,[2] including the Islamabad court attack, before merging into the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar group in August 2014.[3]
The group's name literally means freedom fighters of India (referring to the Indian subcontinent as a whole).[4] According to a commander of a Taliban group, the group derived its name of "Ahrar" from Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam, because the Ahraris were against the partition of India and the formation of Pakistan; they, rather, believed that the entire subcontinent was their homeland. The commander said that the group planned to expand their operations to the remaining part of the subcontinent.[5]
The group mostly contained Taliban from Mohmand Agency's Tribes,[6] with some members from the Punjabi Taliban based in southern Punjab.[4] Many of its members are based in eastern Afghanistan.[4] While the group claimed to have split from the TTP because of opposition to peace talks with the government and after advice from a certain Paracha saab (a patwari of note),[7] some observers believed the group was used by the TTP to carry out deniable attacks without disrupting the cease fire talks.[8]
The Pakistani government made disowning Ahrar-ul-Hind a condition of the TTP for peace talks to continue, while simultaneously carrying out airstrikes on Ahrar-ul-Hind bases.[9] In response, the Taliban announced a ceasefire and accepted the condition of dealing with Ahrar-ul-Hind. After this announcement, the group claimed an attack on the Islamabad High Court in March 2014.[10]
In August 2014, Omar Khalid Khorasani merged Ahrar-ul-Hind with other dissident TTP commanders into a new group called Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, formally splitting away from Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in September 2014.[3] [11]