LANDI KOTAL, May 27: Politicians, councillors and elders of tribal areas have demanded that Fata parliamentarians should be given the right to legislation for their areas, in the proposed constitutional package.

Talking to Dawn here on Tuesday, the leaders of various political parties operating in the tribal areas regretted that successive governments had ‘intentionally’ deprived tribesmen of their basic human and democratic rights.

The tribal elders urged provision of all constitutional rights for ordinary tribesmen.

Jamaat-i-Islami deputy general secretary for Fata Zar Noor Afridi said tribesmen were patriotic Pakistanis, but they had been deprived of their basic human rights since the inception of the country.

He said tribesmen should be given equal rights.

He said there were 12 Fata MNAs and eight tribal senators, but they had no power make legislation or amend laws for their own areas.

He called upon the Pakistan People’s Party leadership to empower through its proposed constitutional package the Fata legislators to make laws for their areas.

He said if the PPP and its coalition partners were sincere in making parliament a sovereign legislative body, the president should be relieved of his powers to make or amend laws for tribal areas through ordinances.

Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party leader Dr Said Alam Massod said the tribal MNAs were real representatives of the tribal areas because the local people voted for them.

He said if the coalition government was sincere in amending the Frontier Crimes Regulation, it would empower the Fata legislators to propose changes in the present system in the tribal areas.

Awami National Party activist Shah Hussain said the proposed constitutional package would not be acceptable to most of tribesmen if the government failed to transfer the powers of legislation for Fata from the president to the tribal parliamentarians.

He demanded that extension of the Political Parties Act to the tribal areas should be made part of the proposed 18th constitutional amendment. This, he said, would help curb militancy in the region.

He urged the Fata parliamentarians to link their support to the proposed constitutional package with the abolition of the presidential powers to make and amend laws for the tribal region through ordinances.

A Zakhakhel elder, Malik Razzaq, said they would have no objection to empowering the Fata legislators provided the powers of the political administration were not curtailed.

He said the government should end the discrimination between Fata and settled areas’ parliamentarians.

A member of the agency council, Murad Saqi, demanded that the PPP-sponsored constitutional package should provide for establishing an all-powerful elected agency or Fata council, having the powers to make andamend laws for the tribal areas.