ANP leader calls for Fata’s merger into KP

BARA: Awami National Party (ANP) provincial vice-president Imran Afridi on Thursday urged the government to merge Fata into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
He was speaking at a Jirga held at his residence and was attended by the party office-bearers, activists and tribal elders.
He said that all the workers and leaders of ANP would join the rally scheduled to be held on November 16 in Islamabad to support the merger of Fata into KP.
“It has been envisaged in the manifesto of ANP that the followers of Bacha Khan would make efforts for abolition of the FCR and merger of Fata into KP,” Imran Afridi maintained.
He said the tribal people had always opposed the “draconian FCR” but the bureaucracy did not abolish it as it was used for their own ends.
Imran Afridi made it clear that the problems of the tribal people could not be solved through military operations but political process.
The ANP leader said the leaders of all political parties in Fata, particularly in Khyber Agency, had been taken into confidence to make the march to Islamabad successful.
He alleged the bureaucracy was using some elements to disrupt Siyasi Ittehad, an alliance formed by political parties of Fata.
He made it clear that such elements would not succeed in their motives. “We don’t want a separate province but merger of Fata into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” he said.
Imran Afridi said the ANP had opposed the military operations in the Fata as the political problems could have been resolved through political ways.
ANP Khyber Agency president Shah Hussain Shinwari, Malik Darya Khan, Waheed Khan Afridi, Manzoor Afridi and others also spoke on the occasion.