Daily Times

PESHAWAR: The Afghan transporters staged a protest on Friday to demand the removal of the mandatory possession of visa documents to cross the border into Pakistan at Torkham border of neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The Pakistan border authorities at Torkham have termed the possession of Afghanistan passport and visa mandatory for Afghan transporters to cross the Torkham border into Pakistan.

Even the drivers and conductors would not be able to cross the border without visa and passport. The official informed Daily Times that due to an increase in terror attacks in Afghanistan and the counter blame of Afghan public on Pakistan made the authorities to increase the check and balance on the borders crossing Afghanistan.

He added that the Afghan Transport Union had staged a protest but they need to understand the reality of the situation and they need to demand from the Afghan government to stop raising fingers on Pakistan for any fatal activity.

The tension was oblivious in the public on both sides of the Pak-Afghan Border over the possession of valid transport documents to cross the border line from one country to the other, he said.

“But it will on the other hand make the process smooth and no hand would be able to use the soil of Pakistan to carry out illegal activity in Kabul”.

The Jirga official of Afghan People crossed the border to meet Pashtun elders regarding the difficulty in the exchange of masses to cross the border.

The elders from Pakistan’s side said that business and trade had been greatly affected due to the implementation of new border rules but it on the other brought drastic decrease in the terror activities inside Pakistan.

The authorities need to keep the poor people of both sides in sight because they had lost jobs by carrying the trade staff from across the border from one to the other on donkey carts and hand trailers.

The negotiations between the Khyber Agency political administration and the Afghan Transporters Union failed compelling the transporters to stage a strike, he added.

The Pakistani authorities announced earlier that possession of passport and visa was mandatory for Afghan transporters to cross into Pakistan at which the Afghanistan transporters had launched the strike.

Then the transporters demanded for relaxation in the cross border activities. However, the agency political administration and Pakistan-Afghanistan transporters union managed to resolve the issue and ultimately the strike ended.

But Pakistani authorities announced possession of passport and visa as mandatory for conductors and road pass for drivers to cross into Pakistan at Torkham border.

While denouncing the announcement, Afghan transporters once again launched a protest at the Afghanistan side of the border and demanded from the Pashtun elders to negotiate with the political administration of Khyber Agency in order to save the time and energies of transporters.

No one has a right to speak about the rights of FATA women and People of FATA instead the people need to stand and raise a voice to change the situation in which they are supposed to live in.

They said no one becomes a tribal just by making a tribal domicile and tribal people do have traditions to constitute groups to evaluate the rights of women and
children.

The tribal elders also condemned the resolutions of the women’s Jirga which was headed by the Awami National Party (ANP) leader Bushra Gohar. The Jirga held in Peshawar yesterday creviced a male dominancy in FATA and also blamed the tradition to be a hurdle to make then girl led and live a life of their aspirations.

They said the women’s Jirga was wrong in its assertion that the tribal women had no access to education and other basic facilities. They said women of FATA do have the opportunities according to their norms and culture.

The Jirga members said reforms in FATA should be implemented only after complete return and rehabilitation of the displaced people.