Political activists demand FCR abolition, elders seek amendments
LANDIKOTAL: The members of the Fata Reforms Committee visited the town here Monday to seek the views of people from different walks of life amid protests by political and civil society activists who wanted abolition of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) and claimed they were kept out of the proceedings.
Advisor to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, who is head of the Fata Reforms Committee, was accompanied by its members including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Minister for States and Frontier Regions (Safron) Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch, and Federal Minister Zahid Hamid. They held two sessions at the Landikotal Jirga Hall, one with the tribal elders and the other with traders and political parties’ representatives.
However, representatives of the political parties boycotted the session and protested outside the Jirga Hall and later in the Landikotal bazaar. Media persons were also barred from covering the session held with the tribal elders and Maliks, who demanded some changes in the FCR instead of abolishing it altogether. The proceedings at the Jirga Hall were married by loud disagreements between rival groups of tribesmen. The situation became tense when some of the tribal elders asked the committee members that changes to the FCR would suffice while MNA Shah Jee Gul Afridi’s supporters and civil society activists in the hall began chanting slogans against the proposal. The sloganeering was particularly directed against former federal minister Hamidullah Jan Afridi when he was invited to deliver his speech. The hall echoed with slogans of “Shame, shame!” and “FCR Murdabad!”
Several political leaders including Awami National Party Landikotal president Shah Hussain Shinwari and Jamaat-i-Islami Fata deputy head Zarnoor Afridi were escorted out of the Jirga Hall by the Khassadar force personnel.
The demand for merging Fata into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was also heard, but many wanted Fata to become a separate province or to be turned into Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (Pata).
Later, the governor told reporters that the tribal people had the right to share their views and concerns about the future status of Fata. He said it would be a blunder if the almost 10 million tribal people were ignored in deciding the status of Fata.
Sartaj Aziz in his remarks said that it was their duty to record the views of people from all walks of life in Fata so that they could make a final decision.
Local journalists including Ashrafuddin Pirzada, Nasib Shah Shinwari, Sudhir Ahmad Afridi, Ibrahim Shinwari, Akmal Khan and Qazi Fazlullah also gave their suggestions to the committee members. They opined that human rights were being violated under the FCR and it was used as a weapon against the tribal people.
Meanwhile, hundreds of locals and political party activists including those from Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakistan People’s Party, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F), Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Awami National Party and National Party staged protest rally in Landikotal bazaar when the FCR Reforms Committee was holding its sessions. The protestors were highlighting their demand for abolition of FCR and equal rights for the tribal people.
The normally busy Landikotal bazaar remained partially closed to avoid any untoward incident during the protest.
Extraordinary security arrangements were made on the occasion while all the administration offices also remained closed. Assistant Political Agent of Landikotal, Rahimullah Khan Mehsud said that political parties’ leaders and traders were invited to a second session because the Jirga Hall lacked the required space to accommodate so many invitees.