Daily Times

PESHAWAR: The Jamaat-e-Islami started its long march early Monday morning from Khyber Agency to Parliament in Islamabad to ensure merger of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The party supporters and workers gathered at Bab-e-Khyber and are heading towards Islamabad via Peshawar. The workers even held a brief sit-in at JI’s centre on Grand Truck Road.

The convoy is expected to reach Faizabad Interchange on Tuesday at 10AM, where JI Amir Siraj-ul-Haq will address the protesters.

During the court of the long march, sit-ins will be held at over a dozen places from Khyber Agency to Peshawar. The final sit-in will be staged outside the Parliament for three days after which the future line of action will be announced.

JI had announced long march towards Islamabad last month.

“The announcement to abolish the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) next week is vague. The federal government should clearly announce the merger of Fata with KP. It made the claims many times in the past but withdrew from its promises at the eleventh hour moment,” Mushtaq Ahmad, the provincial amir of the JI, said while speaking to media on Saturday.

He welcomed the government’s decision of abolishing the FCR and termed it a victory of the JI. However, he continued that the JI would still hold the long march so that the government doesn’t backtrack on its promise.

“We will start our long march from Khyber Agency after a sit-in there. Our long march is peaceful and we hope the government will not create any hurdle in our way,” said the JI provincial amir.

He added the leaders of other political parties had been invited to the sit-in and long march as the politicians were united over the immediate merger of Fata with KP.

The JI leader added his party would convert the long march into celebration if the federal government announced the merger of the tribal areas with KP.

“We want the government to abolish the FCR, merge Fata with KP immediately and announce a special package of Rs 1,000 billion for developmental projects in the hitherto neglected tribal areas,” said Mushtaq Ahmad.

On Saturday, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman, Imran Khan also urged the PML-N federal government to ensure the merger of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa before 2018 general elections, Samaa reported Saturday.

This he demanded while addressing PTI’s convention on FATA.

“The government must take steps to merge FATA with KP before the 2018 elections otherwise the people of FATA will suffer for another five years and that is unacceptable,” Imran Khan said.

Imran Khan, on the occasion, highlighted political and historical role played by people of FATA in 1947 and freedom of Azad Kashmir.

“Despite their love for Pakistan, the government has ignored the tribal areas,” he said.

“The Pakistan’s prevailing judicial system failed to provide justice to people of FATA; therefore, they called for restoration of Islamic system through the movement for enforcement of Shariah,” he said.

He said the people should not think that Pakistan Army has conquered FATA. “On America’s behest, the Musharraf government committed a mistake and stirred unrest with military operation.” He said there were peace in FATA before the 9/11 and start of US drone attacks in tribal areas of Pakistan.

Published in Daily Times, December 12^th 2017.