General Bajwa’s reassurance welcomed in KP

ISLAMABAD: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s reassurance on some issues that are proving challenges to those living in Fata, have been welcomed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

Land mines and security checkposts are the bane of the people in locales where the armed forces have mopped up and where security concerns have been addressed to a great extent. With terrorists active on the country’s western borders, leaving no opportunity to enter Pakistan or to take out Pakistani soldiers at border posts, return to normalcy is awfully slow but understandable.

Gen Bajwa did not mince his words in this regard by saying that threat is still very much there from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and the terrorists are using Afghan refugee camps as ‘safe havens’.

“Measures to facilitate general public at checkposts without compromising security and clearance of unexploded ordnance are already in process on completion of kinetic operations”, he said on Thursday while addressing kith and kin of brave hearts who gave the optimal sacrifice by laying down their lives.

In fact, Gen Bajwa in the past while speaking in Landi Kotal had said he is in favour of the merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), but any change in the status of the region would be made with the consent of all stakeholders, according to tribal elders. “I myself favour Fata’s merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after a recent meeting with the youth from the region who unanimously supported the merger plan,” Gen Bajwa was quoted as saying by some youngsters with whom he had interacted.

This reassurance has to be understood by Pakhtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM). Senate’s passing on Friday the bill extending the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and Peshawar High Court to the tribal areas, will not provide instant relief but must be welcomed by the PTM.

The extension of the superior courts' jurisdiction is one of several demands of the people of Fata who seek to be treated at par with the rest of the country. The great betrayal in Parliament was from Mehmud Khan Achakzai and Maula Fazlur Rehman for very short term political gains.

Stories of Pakhtuns abide and one was shared recently with The News. During the Second World War, there were many Indian soldiers who were fighting with the British army in Burma while their families stayed put in their villages.

“I was admitted to the local Urdu medium school in Village Pir Pai in then NWFP. In 1945 when my father returned from Burma I was admitted to Presentation Convent in Rawalpindi which was headed by Irish nuns”, recalls an elderly Pakhtun lady.

Presentation Convent was divided into English medium and the Vernacular side. “My father, a Captain by then, saw the difference and the decision by the nuns to put me in the Vernacular side while “white” girls were put in English medium side”, she says.

The young Pukhtun Captain marched to the nuns to declare “I am not an Indian. I am a Pukhtun and I demand you put my daughter in English medium classes”. His persuasion worked and the young girl graduated in English medium school and college.

The News had reported earlier from Peshawar, “Since most of PTM demands are related to the law-enforcement agencies, they (state) should take it positively before some vested interests use this platform for their own agenda by creating an impression that voice of smaller communities like Pashtuns isn’t heard in the country, which obviously is not true. “

In other words patience is required and the PTM should not be pushed to the wall, but simple issues should not be delayed and confusion created. Lessons of our short history should never be forgotten.