April 01, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 23, 1429

PESHAWAR, March 31: Fata Grand Alliance while rejecting the prime minister’s announcement to repeal the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) has asked for separation of judiciary from the executive in the tribal region.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, the alliance’s president, Engineer M. Zaman Dawar, expressed reservations about the prime minister’s announcement regarding complete abolition of the FCR, saying that the decision could create turmoil.

He lamented that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani did not take parliamentarians from the federally administered tribal areas into confidence before making the announcement in the National Assembly regarding abolition of the FCR.

The prime minister, he suggested, should announce complete package for the tribal area including amendments in the FCR.

Flanked by the alliance’s general secretary and other office-bearers, M. Zaman demanded of the government to induct Fata parliamentarians and experts in the two-member committee, which had been set up to prepare recommendations in this regard.

The federal government, he said, should bring amendments in the FCR instead of abolishing the system, which may trigger a new controversy in the volatile tribal region and urged MNAs from the tribal region not to attend official functions until the prime minister gave assurance regarding amendments to the Frontier Crimes Regulation instead of its abolition.

Mr Zaman said that the announcement made by the prime minister at the floor of the house without taking the stakeholders into confidence had disappointed over four million people of the tribal region.

The alliance’s president said that the former governor NWFP had constituted a commission headed by former judge of the Supreme Court Mian Ajmal Khan.

The commission, he said, had proposed recommendations regarding FCR and asked the government to implement those recommendations.

The commission, Mr Zaman said, had suggested separating executive from the judiciary and setting up a High Court for Fata. ‘The court would hear appeals of the tribesmen,’ he concluded.