KP tribesmen demand separate province

A large number of tribesmen in Khyber district on Sunday took out a rally, demanding for separate province and opposed the merger of erstwhile Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The protest rally was jointly organised by Khyber Union, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) local chapter, Awami Inqelab and Anjuman-e-Tajeraan at the main square of Bara Bazaar in the tribal district.
A large number of tribal elders, tribesmen, Khasadar force personnel and people from different walks of life, and locals participated in the protest and staged sit-in at Khyber Square and blocked the main road for all kind of movement. Former Member Parliament Hameedullah Jan Afridi, President Awami Inqelab Attaullah Afridi, JI leader Bara Khan Wali Afridi and others addressed on the occasion.
The demonstrators said that the main purpose of merging of tribal belt into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was to get hold of minerals present in the Fata and not to facilitate the tribal. They maintained that on pretext of merging, the tribesmen were cheated and in spite part of mainstream ex-Fata was negated of its basic rights that put question mark on merging.
"We need a separate province and not merging and we require our own Khasadar and Levies Forces and not police system in the area", they opined. They threatened that if their demands were not meet, they would set on fire, the newly initiated anti-narcotics checkpoint in Sheen Kamr area of Bara. Earlier, a day ago, Khasadar personnel staged a protest against the introduction of new police system in tribal Khyber District. They resented forcibly policy of deployment of police in the merged tribal districts and said that it was not acceptable and they were not ready to give up their powers to police.
"The decision will leave thirty thousand Khasadar persons jobless, across the tribal belt which is equivalent to chick of matchless sacrifices, the forces have rendered in war against terrorism", they argued. They demanded that Khasadar should be merged in Levies and police power should be assigned to Levies force.
At the end through resolution, they announced their boycott of upcoming polio campaign and said that till acceptance of their demands the Khasadar would not provide security to the health officials in anti-polio drive. It is to be mentioned here that the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa finalized lists of police officials to be deployed in the ex-tribal agencies.