Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Students of various tribal agencies on Wednesday demanded of the federal legislature to completely abolish the draconian Frontier Crime Regulation (FCR) law from the FATA and merge it into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The demands were made during a protest demonstration held at Sher Shah Suri Road outside the Peshawar Press Club.

Talking to reporters, All Qabail (tribal) Students Union (AQSU) office bearers were of the opinion that tribesmen had been deprived of their basic rights for the past several decades. They said that a complete abolishment of the FCR was the need of the hours as it was imposed by the then Britain rulers in FATA for suppressing the tribesmen.

On the occasion they presented a list of the demands consisting of merging of FATA into KP and seat increasing for tribal students in various colleges and universities while through a process admission should be given to those tribal students who did not enrol themselves due to some reasons.

They further demanded of the government to establish a cadet and medical college in all the seven agencies of FATA. They also demanded of the immediate restoration of FATA annual scholarship to tribal students and reconstruction of the destroyed educational institutions in the tribal belt during the operation against militancy.

Meanwhile the Pakhtun Students Federation (PSF) Bara Khyber Agency staged a protest against the agency’s Political Agent outside the PA office. Abid Afridi, present PSF, Adnan Afridi, general secretary, Jalil Afridi, Irfan Afridi, and Wahab Afridi were leading the
agitators. They demanded of the government to increase admission seats in the Government Degree College Kohi Sher Haider and Speen Dhandand Higher Secondary School of tehsil Bara purely on merit basis.

They claimed that due to the availability of fewer seats, the merit of the said educational institutions was on the same level as that of the Islamia College Peshawar and students faced hardships in taking their admission for further education. They added that most of the students had not obtained good marks in their Secondary School Certificate examinations owing to closure of educational institutions and imposition of curfew in
the area.

They demanded of the political administration and Political Agent (PA) of the agency to provide relief to them in the merit list of the mentioned college and a higher secondary school aimed at saving the student’s lost time. They further demanded of the concerned authority to approved second shift classes in the said educational institutions for those students who did not get admissions.

They also demanded of the government to take tangible steps for the provision of all facilities to the educational institutions located in the agency.

They lamented that the migration process had been made difficult for them therefore they demanded of the government to make implement the migration process for tribal students who wanted to repatriate along with their families to their home towns.