Jirga rejects Fata’s merger into KP, demands provincial status

KALAYA: A jirga on Monday rejected the merger of the Federally Administration Tribal Areas (Fata) into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and instead demanded a separate province for the tribal population.
A jirga of the elders and representatives of seven agencies in of Fata was held in Kalaya, the administrative headquarters of Orakzai Agency.
Prominent among the tribal elders including former federal minister Hameedullah Jan Afridi, Vice Chairman of the Muttahida Qabail Party Habib Noor Orakzai, Mian Masud Shah, Malik Muhammad Ali, Malik Khan Marjan and others attended the jirga.
The jirga criticised the tabling of a bill in the National Assembly about the merger of Fata into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The participants ruled out the merger of Fata into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They said that the tribespeople wanted their own province and vowed to continue their struggle for the purpose.
The jirga asked the government to first complete the return process of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) to native areas and compensate them for the losses they suffered due to dislocation.