THE Federally Administered Tribal Areas should be merged in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The Fata Reforms Committee has proposed a set of parallel and concurrent political, administrative, judicial and security reforms as well as a massive reconstruction and rehabilitation programme to prepare Fata for a ‘five-year transition period’ for the merger.

The people of Fata have seen nothing but war from the past three decades. They deserve peace and equal rights as citizens. Merging with KP will improve the security situation in Fata.

Under Article 247, the people of Fata cannot approach the Supreme Court nor register a case against the political agent. The people of the tribal areas will have no rights until these articles are removed from the Constitution.

The people of Fata should also have right to elect members of the national and provincial assemblies from their tribal areas. The region will only prosper once proper laws are in place. This can only happen when Fata is merged in KP. The people of Fata and KP share the same culture and traditions. They speak the same language. Every tribal agency is located in or near Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. These are solid reasons to merge Fata into KP.

Noor Ul Huda Malik

Dera Ismail Khan

Published in Dawn January 30th, 2017