Merger of Fata with KP only option, says Siraj

LAHORE :Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Senator Sirajul Haq has warned the government that it was left with the only option of merging Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, adding that if the rulers tried to impose any other solution, the people of the tribal areas would not accept that.
For the last 70 years, FATA has been a land without any constitution but now the government must have to give it the constitution, he said while speaking at a reception he hosted for the tribal elders and advisers from FATA at Mansoora on Thursday.Sirajul Haq demanded representation for FATA in the national and provincial assemblies. He said the rulers were worried that merger of FATA with KP would offend Afghanistan and India. He said the people of the tribal areas were not free even to cry. He said so far, there had been no judicial, educational or economic systems in FATA. There are no courts to dispense justice. The Political Agent is the undeclared ruler of the tribal agencies and corruption was rampant, the JI leader said. He said if someone was posted as Tehsildar in the tribal area, he went to work on a motorcycle but in two or three years, he drove a luxury vehicle.
He said the tribal people were equal citizens of the country but they were being denied their rights. There is no university or medical college in FATA and the literacy rate among the women in FATA is hardly three percent. He said FATA suffers mass illiteracy, unemployment and poverty which provided the enemy agents like Raymond Davis and Kulbushan an opportunity to enter and carry out terrorist and subversive activities.
JI Secretary General Liaqat Baloch, speaking on the occasion, said the attitude of the government and its attempts to run away from its commitments had highly disappointed the people of the tribal areas but it would not be allowed to flee from its commitment on FATA’s merger with KP.
Liaqat Baloch demanded President Mamnoon Husain and Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi resolve the FATA issue on priority basis to foil the game being played by the US against Pakistan through India and Afghanistan. Liaqat Baich said FATA people had risen against the black law of FCR and it was better for the government to implement the recommendations of the Sartaj Aziz committee and provide an opportunity to the tribal people to elect their representatives for the national and the provincial assemblies. He said the FATA’s merger with KP was the consensus demand of the tribal people and there was no need for any referendum on the issue.
He said the government had failed both on domestic and foreign fronts, and in order to remove the unrest and mistrust among the people, it was imperative that the rulers honoured their commitments to the people. He said there was great unrest and resentment among tribal people due to the government’s failure to implement the Sartaj Aziz committee recommendations. He said that the tribal people had made repeated attempts to be free from
the colonial era legacy of FCR but the rulers had so far left them at the mercy of the Political Agents despite their promises to abolish the black law.