LANDI KOTAL: Former Supreme Court chief justice and Pakistan Justice Democratic Party head Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on Saturday declared the recently announced Fata Reforms Plan a fraud and said the PML-N government in the centre was not sincere about the socioeconomic development of the tribal region.

Addressing party workers and office-bearers for Khyber Agency here during his maiden visit to Fata, Mr Chaudhry said he didn’t see the early implementation of the approved Fata reforms.

He said the successive federal governments intentionally deprived Fata people of basic legal and constitutional rights. “Fata is like a fort, while its residents are acting as unpaid protectors of the country’s geographic frontiers but even then, they were denied electricity, clean water and gas,” he said.

The former CJP said if the federal government had the will to free Fata of the obsolete system of governance, the extension of the writ of superior judiciary to the region would be a big achievement.

He said the Fata people rendered sacrifices for the freedom of Kashmir in the past but unfortunately, they were subjected to an ‘inhuman and un-Islamic’ system of justice and administration.

Mr Chaudhry said his party’s manifesto promised the provision of equal rights to the people, including Fata residents. Earlier, the former CJP was accorded a warm welcome on arrival in the area.

Party workers and local elders presented him the tribal Lungi.

Mr Chaudhry also administered oath to the new office-bearers of his party in Khyber Agency.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2017