PESHAWAR: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) acting head Liaquat Baloch on Wednesday urged the federal government to announce merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa before the next general election.
Addressing a grand tribal jirga organised by JI at Peshawar Press Club, he said there was no need for holding any referendum on the merger of Fata into KP. Liaquat Baloch maintained that the tribal people were still deprived of their basic rights.
JI provincial head Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, JI Fata head Sardar Khan, deputy chief Sahibzada Haroonur Rashid, JI parliamentary leader in the National Assembly Sahibzada Tariqullah, Senior Minister Inayatullah Khan, Awami National Party (ANP) leader Abdul Latif Afridi, Mukhtiar Bacha of National Party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Iqbal Afridi, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Akhunzada Chattan, Fata Youth Jirga head Aamir Afridi, Qaumi Watan Party leader Asad Afridi and others addressed the jirga.
Liaquat Baloch said that time had come to take correct and timely decisions, recalling that Bangladesh created when the rulers failed to do so. He said the people of Fata had been denied their basic rights for the last 70 years, which was injustice.
The JI leader said that the Frontier Crimes Regulation had made the lives of innocent people miserable. He said that Fata was being kept backward intentionally.
He added that those living outside Fata had no right to impose their decision on them.
He maintained that the people of Fata should be given right to elect their nominees for provincial assembly and local bodies.