LANDI KOTAL/KHAR: MNA from Khyber Agency Haji Shahji Gul has announced start of a campaign in all the seven tribal regions to muster support for pressurising the federal government to implement the proposed reforms in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Talking to this correspondent, he said that he would soon embark on a tour of all the tribal regions to meet the stakeholders and get their support for early implementation of the Fata reforms.

“We will stage a dharna (sit-in) in the federal capital on Oct 9 if our demands were not accepted,” Mr Gul cautioned.

He said that he along with Shahabuddin Khan and Sajid Turi, two other tribal MNAs from Bajaur and Kurram, respectively, had conveyed to the federal government to immediately convene the meeting of Council of Common Interests with representation from Fata, extend jurisdiction of the Peshawar High Court instead of Islamabad High Court to Fata and replace the chairman of parliamentary committee for Fata reforms.

He said that the chairman of parliamentary committee for Fata reforms, who belonged to Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, was a hurdle to the merger of Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and implementation of the related reforms package.

Mr Gul, who also served as parliamentary leader of at least six independent Fata parliamentarians in the National Assembly for nearly two years, said that he along with his other two colleagues would try to take rest of the Fata parliamentarians into confidence to build pressure on the government.

In Khar, Islami Jamiat Talba (IJT) on Wednesday announced to launch a campaign for abolition of Frontier Crimes Regulation from Sept 23 by arranging seminars and functions in the educational institutions of Bajaur Agency.

The announcement was made by Malakand division IJT nazim Shoaib Ahmad and Bajaur Agency nazim Farmanullah while addressing a press conference here at Bajaur press club.

They showed their concern about the unnecessary delay in abolition of FCR in the tribal areas as the colonial-era governance system was not only the main hurdle to the socio-economic development, but also a major obstacle to the promotion of education in the region.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2017