Daily Times

PESHAWAR: FATA Youth Alliance (FYA) on Friday rejected the recommendations of FATA reforms committee and demanded of the government not to merge the tribal areas into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Addressing a news conference at Peshawar Press Club, Abid Afridi, President FYA said that the KP was already deprived of its basic rights while merging FATA into the province would create further difficulties for the KP administration.

He said that amendments should be made in the Frontier Crime Regulations (FCR) and the decision should be taken through the old traditional Jirga system in the tribal belt.

He added that Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) was a part of Pakistan according to the 1973 constitution of the country.

The FATA reforms committee, he said was formed by the Prime Mini-ster Main Nawaz Sharif which was supervised by Sartaj Aziz to visit all the seven agencies of FATA and six Frontier Regions (FRs) aimed at ascertaining the views of tribesmen regarding the tribal areas’ future fate.

“Unfortunately those who were appointed to know the opinion of tribal people were the blue-eyed persons of the political administration and the FYA could not access the reforms committee to present its opinion to that committee” he alleg-ed. Flank-ed by Qayy-um Mengal, General Secretary FYA and others, he said tribal areas had been in the grip of terrorism for the last 15 years while due to Operation Zarb-e-Azab against militancy the terrorists’ activities had lessened to a great number.

He added that millions of tribal peoples had become Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and were compelled to live in the open sky for the sake of peace in FATA.

He expressed grave concerns over the century long FCR law imposed by the British on tribesmen but now this black must be abolished and the Government of Pakistan should make sure the provision of basic rights to tribal people.

He said the government tried to impose FATA Good Governance Reforms (FGGR) in FATA which he said would not solve the issues of the tribal people. He demanded of the government to form an independent and law making council for FATA and through that council tribesmen would have the rights to solve their issues bilaterally.