Representatives of different political and religious parties at a national seminar on FATA at Mansoora on Wednesday, called for immediate abolition of the FCR and merger of tribal areas with KP in the light of the Sartaj Aziz committee recommendations. A joint declaration adopted at the moot also demanded that FATA be merged into Khyber P. before the next elections to facilitate provincial assembly elections there. It also called for holding local bodies elections in the tribal areas to establish grass root democracy there and for brining the tribal people in the national main scheme.
The seminar called for a special Rs one thousand billion package for the rehabilitation of FATA to enable the people affected and displaced by the army operations to move to their homes. It demanded equal legal, political and basic human rights for the tribal people.
The speakers stressed upon the Prime Minister not to continue the black law of the FCR on the pretext of opposition by Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Mehmod Achakzai, and added this attempt to deceive the nation won't succeed. They said it was the Prime Minister's responsibility to bring around Maulana and Achakzai on this point as the people of the tribal areas wanted to throw out the FCR a symbol of British rule.
JI Secretary General Liaqat Baloch who chaired the seminar, said that all political and religious parties of the country had launched a movement against the FCR from today. He said that the British rulers had clamped FCR only to advance their colonial agenda but it had been in force even after 70 years of the creation of Pakistan. He said the people of tribal areas had offered unmatched sacrifices for Pakistan but they considered the future of their coming generations bleak due to the FCR.
Tribal elder Shahjee Gul Afridi said that the entire nation supported the tribal people demand for FCR's abolition and all the political parties endorsed this demand. He said that the parties who were opposing the demand wanted to continue politics on the dead bodies of the tribal people. JI chief from Khyber P. Mushtaq Ahmed Khan said that the tribal area was virtually a big jail because of the FCR. He said the tribal people had supported the Pakistan movement and also freed Azad Kashmir. However, he said, the tribal areas were more backward than any African country.