PPP petition seeks political parties’ role in Fata
By Nasir Iqbal
ISLAMABAD, July 30: Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto on Monday moved the Supreme Court seeking extension of the Political Parties Act, 1962 to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).
Filed by Advocate Sardar Mohammad Latif Khan Khosa on behalf of Ms Bhutto, the petition said that it was the fundamental right of the Fata people to have the choice of political parties and actively participate in the coming elections.
Filed under fundamental rights, it argued that true democracy with the application of Political Parties Act could bring civil society back to peace and prosperity through the enforcement of rule of law.
The federal government through secretaries of the cabinet division and law and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) have been made respondents in the petition.
With a population of 3.6 million, Fata stretched 27,220kms bordering Afghanistan to the west inhabiting mainly by Pukhtun tribes and is governed under the frontier crimes regulation introduced during the British Raj. Fata has representation in the National Assembly by 12 members and in the Senate by eight.
Since the Political Parties Act is not applicable to Fata, the petition pleaded that no political party, except religious, was allowed to field candidates in the region. Resultantly, Fata, a unit of the federation, had been handed over completely to the religious parties to operate through mosques and madressahs and to enjoy the right to run election campaigns under the cover of religion, it contended.
The petition said that in view of the war on terror and its focus on the tribal areas, it was imperative that tribesmen were involved in the political process by allowing the political parties to operate in the region.
“The war on terror also needs to be fought politically with a measure of transparency by allowing full freedom to the political parties to mobilise political opinion against terrorism, instead of mere military operation in secrecy,” it added.
With 80,000 soldiers of the Pakistan Army deployed and hundreds of tribesmen and many army personnel killed, the military operation was a fiasco and no substitute of political solution, it said.
Instead of maintaining the writ of the government to provide safety and security to citizens, the petition said, it appeared that different parts of the country had been parcelled out to mafias, terrorists, thugs and hoodlums by the present government.
It alleged that Karachi had been handed over to the MQM and a part of Islamabad had been conceded to the extremists allegedly led by the Lal Masjid management.
“Hiding under the name of religion, the religious parties grab land, kidnap citizens, including policemen with impunity, patrol streets, intimidate women and threaten barbers, beauticians and those belonging to the entertainment industry, while police stand as bystanders,” the petition alleged.
“The tribal areas have been more or less conceded to the pro-Taliban forces and the regime signs peace treaties with them. In return, they take the law into their hands murdering those who think differently to them,” it said.
Different terrorist groups had control over Tank, Bannu and Malakand and intimidated people into taking law into their hands, the petition alleged.
