Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) Abdul Qadir Baloch has said the government is planning to revoke Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) within a week. While addressing a press conference here on Friday along with Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Sartaj Aziz, who is also the head of FATA Reforms Committee, the minister said FCR had been termed illegal by Peshawar and Balochistan High Courts so the government was going to abolish it within a week after making consultations with all the stakeholders, especially with the people of FATA.
The British made FCR law of 1901, under which the people of FATA are still governed, deprives the residents of the tribal areas of three basic rights; right of appeal, Wakeel (lawyer), and Daleel (proof/reason). This law in addition to several other similar FCR articles is a violation of the fundamental rights of the citizens. The clause 21 of the FCR permits collective punishment and the crime of an individual is punishable by fines imposed on the entire tribe/family under section 22-23.
"The FCR is a black law. It is necessary to rid ourselves of it," Baloch said. He announced that the KP governor would send President Mamnoon Hussain a summary to abolish the FCR soon; however, there was no confirmed date for the KP-FATA merger in the future. "Work is underway to bring FATA into the mainstream," said Sartaj Aziz adding the Supreme Court would extend the high court's jurisdiction to FATA.
Aziz said the government was presenting a bill in that regard in the National Assembly (NA) on December 11, which was likely to be approved by the NA and then it would finally be approved by the Senate later next week. He said in order to mainstream FATA economically, a committee was formed which had almost completed its work and would present its report before National Economic Council by the end of current month. "Due to a lack of quorum in the Lower House on Friday, the bill related to this development could not be passed," he told the press.
Sartaj Aziz further said that Rs 1,000 billion FATA Development Fund would be created for 10 years and that many schemes were in the pipeline to help bring FATA into the economic mainstream. He said three percent of Federal Divisible Pool would be set aside for FATA next week. The government will be contacted to bring FATA into the mainstream administratively, and Levies Force will be deployed there in order to bring it into the security mainstream.
He said that allocation would be spent on various development projects in health, education, water, energy and other projects for socio-economic development of the people of the area. "Once FATA is brought parallel to the legal, administrative, economic and security fronts of the other provinces, it will be merged with KP," he said. He apprised the media that a monthly briefing would be given on the FATA reforms.
Sartaj Aziz informed that the government had also planned to expand Levies Force which according to the plan would be given the status of police on a later stage. He said the process of recruiting additional 20,000 personnel in Levies force would be finalised within 2-3 months and the recruitment process was being held under the Frontier Corps. Abdul Qadir Baloch informed that Rahdari system in FATA was also being abolished from January 1, 2018. He said under that system heavy taxes were imposed on any commodity being transported from other parts of the country to FATA.
He said a Council of Advisory had been formed comprising members of FATA in National Assembly and Senate, and Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would be bound to implement the advice of that committee. Furthermore, he added that Additional Chief Secretary of FATA had been assigned the role of FATA Chief Operating Officer from that day (Friday) to control the issues of the area.
He said in health and education sectors of FATA, there were 2,293 vacant posts out of which 1,440 posts had been sanctioned while the remaining would be sanctioned within 15 days. The minister said the government was not delaying any project in FATA as it had sufficient funds of Rs 80 billion for the current fiscal year.