Imran gives govt 48 hours to table Fata-KP merger bill

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has warned that the party will come on roads if the government did not table bill on the merger of Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa within 48 hours.

He was addressing the PTI youth convention which called on the government to immediately start integration process of Fata with KP as per the wishes of the people of the tribal areas. Wearing a traditional tribal turban, Imran Khan delivered speech at the Convention Centre here and a 10-point declaration was also adopted, which emphasised the federal government and the provinces must commit resources for Fata for initiation of the 10-year development plan by allocating three percent of the federal divisible pool on annual basis so that the tribal areas could be brought at par with the rest of the country.

“Only the KP government has conveyed its willingness to the federal government to deduct its share of funds for the purpose. The KP chief minister will lead the campaign for persuading other three provinces and the federal government to agree to the 3 percent allocation and the people of Fata must be associated inthe formulation and execution of the development plan,” he said.

Imran said the federal government should immediately start the process of allowing the people of Fata to elect their representatives to KP Assembly in the general elections 2018. He said the government of KP has already expressed its commitment to accommodate the representatives of Fata in the provincial assembly.

The convention said the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) should be abolished and all the laws of Pakistan extended in a phased manner under a given timeframe. It said the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and Peshawar High Court should be extended to Fata so that the people of Fata are able to enjoy the same rights enjoyed by their fellow citizens in other parts of the country.

The declaration emphasised the local bodies elections should be held before the next general elections to empower the people at the grass-root level. The local government law of KP should be adopted to ensure uniformity of system. Permit system, whereby the poor people are illegally taxed by the administration and is a major source of corruption, should be immediately done away with.

The mineral wealth of Fata, it said, should be explored and utilised for the welfare of the people of Fata. Fata Secretariat, which has become a source of corruption and exploitation of the people of tribal areas, must be disbanded forthwith and its functions reverted to the government of KP as it existed before 2005. The government of KP would immediately constitute a task force under the chief secretary KP to coordinate with the federal government and prepare the province for Fata’s integration.

The PTI chairman lamented that the people of the tribal areas considered Pakistan their own homeland, whereas Pakistan never honoured their feelings. He pointed out that Fata was Pakistan’s most peaceful region, but at the behest of the United States, the armed forces were dispatched to the tribal areas.

Imran said he had called it stupidity on the floor of the National Assembly to sending troops to Waziristan. He said what happened in Fata after 9/11 was unprecedented. “Had the rulers gone through the history of British rulers, they would have not committed such foolish move,” he maintained.

Imran regretted that respective governments paid no attention to the tribal areas and as a result, the Fata people lagged far behind than the rest of Pakistan. He said that while Pakistan sent its forces to Fata, the United States attacked the region with drones. He said this resulted in a fight between the military and the tribal people.

People were killed in drone attacks, he noted, and said their family members then took revenge for those deaths. “The people of tribal areas got sandwiched between Taliban and the Pakistan forces. They were put behind the bars and even their CNICs were blocked,” he lamented.

Imran claimed they had blocked the supply line of Nato after which no drone attacks took place. He also pointed out that al-Qaeda men fled to Iran’s tribal areas but no such operation was conducted against them there.

Imran pointed out that 73 percent tribal people lived below poverty line and added that when Swat and Dir became part of Pakistan in 1974, then average 10 persons got killed but in 1978, the number of annual killings reached 700, which proved that their system of justice was better than ours. He continued that tribal areas are blessed with copper, oil and other natural resources and what was needed was to build hospitals there and educate the locals but no attention was paid to that.

While peeping into history, Imran recalled that on the wishes of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the tribal people had voluntarily decided to become part of Pakistan and they accepted only 44 laws of Pakistan.

Meanwhile, in a meeting with PTI senior vice president Ali Zaidi, Imran Khan said his party and people of Sindh would collectively decide the fate of Asif Ali Zardari and his coterie during his visit to Karachi next week.

"The Peoples Party's barbaric looting of Sindh is unacceptable and intolerable. The PTI will free Sindh from the clutches of Zardari and his corrupt lackeys," he asserted. "We brought Nawaz to the witness stand; now it's Zardari's turn," Imran said, adding that the PTI will pursue this leader of the corrupt to rid Pakistan and Sindh of all corruption.

During the meeting, Imran was briefed on the fundamental problems faced by the people of Sindh, with special focus on Karachi. He lamented that Sindh was being crippled under the PPP's disastrous management. He said the people of the province have lost their right to clean drinking water under the incumbent PPP government.

"The hardworking, sincere and patriotic people of Sindh have been subjugated by the most corrupt coterie. Their only hope is the message of change," he said. Imran is to visit Karachi for two days next week and on return he would be speaking to a party membership convention in Islamabad.

Meanwhile, in social media messages, the PTI chief said Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has conveniently forgotten mentioning the Supreme Court restrictions and criticism of Orange Line project in the judgement on the issue -- especially the scathing critique on how the environment and heritage sites' preservation were ignored and how these must be taken into consideration.

“The question that arises is how a Rs200b project was undertaken without a proper feasibility study regarding impact on environment and our historic sites? Simple answer is Sharifs have no concern for environment or history,” Imran said.

“All the Sharifs are interested in are expensive showcase projects for election campaigns (in this for 2018) and for the fat commissions from these projects that they can whisk away into their overseas accounts,” he alleged.