Independent MNA Mohsin Dawar on Monday complained about his removal from the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and subsequent placement on the relatively unknown Standing Committee on House and Library.

He was replaced by a PTI MNA from Charsadda, Fazal Muhammad Khan, on the Foreign Affairs committee.

Dawar — who is associated with the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) and has had a troubled relationship with security agencies — in a tweet accused NA Speaker Asad Qaiser of bowing to vested interests in the Pakistani state by ordering his removal from the committee.

Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal, the director media of the National Assembly, confirmed the development. There was no reason given for the change.

Dawar told our correspondents that he learned about the matter after arriving at the assembly today.

He said he brought the NA speaker's attention to the matter, but the latter had no knowledge of the change. Dawar said the NA speaker found out later after he (Qaiser) made some inquiries.

Dawar said he was "not satisfied" with Qaiser's response and will raise the matter with opposition lawmakers.

Earlier, Dawar and fellow MNA Ali Wazir, who is also associated with the PTM, were forcibly prevented from travelling to Dubai to participate in a cultural event. They were told that their names had been placed on the Exit Control List (ECL) in connection with a case registered against them in Swabi.

Though their names were eventually ordered to be struck off from the ECL, the two were again prevented from travelling, this time domestically, to attend the funeral of Professor Arman Loni in Loralai, Balochistan in February.

Earlier last year, Dawar was also banned from entering North Waziristan for three months before the Peshawar High Court eventually set aside that ban.

Dawar is a key figure in the PTM.

The PTM is a rights-based alliance that, besides calling for the de-mining of the former tribal areas and greater freedom of movement in the latter, has insisted on an end to the practices of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and unlawful detentions, and for their practitioners to be held to account within a truth and reconciliation framework.