Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Dozens of enraged members of FATA Youth Jirga on Friday held demonstration, seeking the long demanded FATA merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and repealing of Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR)—- a British era law that still governs the tribal region.

Charged protesters including female students’ chanted full-throated slogans such as “Go FCR Go and those who favour FCR is a traitor.”

A female protester Salma Rahim, a student at Quaid-e-Azam University, said the government would now accept the legitimate demands of the tribal people and they could not be forced to live under a different system with discriminatory in a single country.

“It is inevitable and unstoppable. FCR has now to go and the region will be merged with KP,” she noted.

A female activist Samrin Wazir said FATA people should be given the same rights being enjoyed by rest of Pakistanis because the tribal areas are part of Pakistan.

“FATA people and primarily female lead extremely tough life in the tribal region. They should be given their due constitutional rights without further delay,” she added.

Earlier, dozens of protesters formed human chain to express their solidarity with merger of FATA with KP in front of parliament house but police raided them and briefly detained them.

Shah Ji Gul Afridi, Member National Assembly (MNA) from FATA while speaking to demonstrators said that FATA lawmakers and the new generation are ready to offer any sacrifices for mainstreaming of FATA and to bring the region at par with other developed parts of the country.

“The fledgling PML-N government is not serious to bring reforms to FATA but we are to keep hold series of protests in a bid to build maximum pressure on the government to announce reforms before next general elections,” Afridi added.

He said there is no country on the world map where two parallel systems put in place but one part of his country is still being run under the British colonial era laws.

He said that merging of FATA with KP would help overcome the menace of terrorism and beef up security in the country.

He said that children of FATA have seen the worst and the people rendered great sacrifices for the country but the single demand of the people is that they should be given equal rights. “Law of the land should be applied in the tribal belt,” he remarked.

Because of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) support to the government in the backdrop of Panama issue has forced the latter to employ delaying tactics to announce FATA reforms, he recalled.

“I think reforming FATA is not the issue of tribal masses but it is the issue of the entire country,” he added.

Shaukat Aziz, student of NUML University and secretary general FATA Youth Jirga, said that there are two political parties who are trying to delay merger of FATA with KP, but their approach is beyond recognition.“But one thing is clear that our struggle will continue till FATA is merged with KP,” he concluded.

Back in November 2015, the government had formed FATA Reforms Committee for mainstreaming of the tribal region. The Committee has proposed merger of FATA with KP as the best available option for mainstreaming of FATA and prior to merger.

According to Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), the provisions of the FCR are in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Constitution of Pakistan.

According to sub-section A of the clause authorises the “seizure, wherever they may be found, of all or any of the members of such tribe, and of all and any property belonging to them or any of them” for an offence committed by one or more members of a tribe.

Naila Altaf, a student from Peshawar, said people of FATA have been grinding under a discriminatory system for over seventy years and that should be changed for better now.

“We demand nothing extra but we have asking for basic rights like people enjoy in other parts of the country.

Published in Daily Times, January 13^th 2018.