Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) on Tuesday threatened to stage a prolonged sit-in if government fails to merge FATA with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and abolish Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) – a special set of laws that still govern the tribal region – by December 31 this year.

“If the central government doesn’t fulfill our legitimate demands by the end of this month, we will ask people from nook and corner of the country to converge in Islamabad to stage an exemplary sit-in,” Siraj-ul-Haq told a huge gathering in Islamabad during the last leg of his ‘long march’.

The JI long march kicked off on Monday from Khyber Agency to press for the merger of FATA with KP.

Siraj said the government was trying to divide FATA people on the merger issue and warned that the wrath of the tribal people would reach the power corridors if their legitimate demands were not met. “I ask my supporters to arrange tents for a prolonged sit-in in the federal capital if the government fails to agree to our demand of merger of FATA with KP,” he noted.

He said the political agents – top administrators in each tribal agency – are as powerful today as the rulers of Mughal era in the sub-continent, who could put a tribesman behind bars for 25 years without any genuine reason under the draconian FCR laws. “I ask Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi that the tribal people will lock your and your ministers’ offices if you turned down their genuine demands,” he warned.

Syed Khurshid Shah, opposition leader in the National Assembly (NA) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) stalwart, also joined the JI gathering, announcing that his party fully supports merger of FATA with KP. “It is PPP’s stated stance that FATA should be merged with KP without any further delay,” he told the gathering.

JI provincial Amir Mushtaq Ahmad said that leaders of other political parties had been invited to the sit-in and long march as all the political parties were united over the immediate merger of FATA with KP. He said the government should abolish FCR, merge FATA with KP and announce a special package of development projects in the tribal areas.

Also on Tuesday, opposition again staged a walkout from the National Assembly after the government failed to table a bill pertaining to reforms in the tribal areas.

During the assembly session, chaired by Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, Opposition Leader Khursheed Shah criticised the government over employing delaying tactics on the issue of FATA reforms. “The government is not serious regarding implementation of FATA reforms bill,” he noted.

Back in November 2015, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had formed a committee to undertake reforms in FATA.

Published in Daily Times, December 13^th 2017.