LANDI KOTAL: The Khyber chapter of Qabayalistan Tahaffuz Movement (QTM) has announced formation of a 35-member committee comprising all the seven major clans of Afridi tribe to mobilise like-minded people in the tribal districts against the region’s merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and to demand for creation of a separate province.

At a jirga held at the QTM’s main office in Shah Kas Jamrud the other day, leaders of the movement, mostly tribal elders, argued that the erstwhile Fata’s merger had become controversial after the Supreme Court of Pakistan had accepted a petition against the passage of the 25th Constitutional Amendment.

The QTM leaders, including Malak Waris Khan, Malak Daud Kukikhel, its president Sardar Asghar Afridi and Malak Naib Shah, said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had no legal and constitutional authority to interfere in the affairs of the tribal regions after the acceptance of their petition in the Supreme Court.

They said that they would not accept the merger of tribal areas with KP and would even approach the International Court of Justice if they lost their case in the apex court.

They argued that the KP government had miserably failed to initiate any mega development project in the merged districts.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2019