ISLAMABAD: The people of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas have not been taken into confidence regarding the government’s proposed reforms for the area, said chief of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) Mehmood Khan Achakzai on Monday.

Addressing a press conference at the National Press Club, Mr Achakzai rejected the proposed Fata reforms, saying: “Everyone but the locals have been taken on board”.

“The worst part is that the government team led by the Safron minister visited seven agencies and six frontier regions in eight and a half days,” he said.

He said the region covers around 35,000 square miles and has a population of around 15 million.

Refraining from taking names, he said that those who describe Fata as a no man’s land were not doing right by the country.

“These statements are derogatory and should be avoided,” he said,

Mr Achakzai announced that PkMAP will hold a conference regarding the future of Fata on Jan 30 in Islamabad in order to encourage free discussion on the subject.

Though he spoke about the atrocities and injustices being faced by the people of Fata, he declined to respond to questions about whether the destruction was due to Zarb-i-Azb.

“I am not criticising the army or the operation, but the government should be more considerate of the needs of the citizens,” he said, adding that though many parties have held conferences on Fata, none talked about the people of the region.

Senator Malik Hilalur Rehman said the signatures of parliamentarians at the bottom of a government report on Fata are deceptive.

“The signatures were taken for a consensus to end frontier crime regulation (FCR), but the government made this report and showed our signatures on it,” he said.

He explained that he was critical of the government report because it is still vague and unclear.

“It says that FCR will be replaced with a Riwaj Act, but what is the Riwaj Act. Maybe it is a modern [version] of FCR. The development package is also not clear,” he said, adding that a complete document should be presented in parliament for discussion.

Published in Dawn January 24th, 2017