People belonging to different walks of life hail Fata reforms

The people belonging to different walks of life, including lawmakers, academia and students, Saturday hailed the passage of FATA Reforms Bill, which paved the way for merging colonially divided tribal areas with mainstream areas of the country. The news of passage of the bill spread like a jungle fire in all seven agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the tribal people thronged to the streets and danced to the tune of traditional Pashto music to celebrate the historic occasion.
They described the passage of long-awaited 'FATA Reforms Bill' also aimed at merging the FATA with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as a historic step forwards bringing the neglected part of the country at far with rest of the country. "It was a longstanding demand of people of FATA to give them a Pakistani identity and equal rights available to the people of rest of the country. The move would certainly ensure giving the people of FATA the same legal, civil, constitutional and human rights as being enjoyed by the people of Pakistan," Member National Assembly from Khyber Agency Shahjee Gul Afridi said.
He said the people of tribal areas were subjected to colonial laws under the FCR who will now get rid of these draconian laws. He said that tribal people would now get speedy justice after extending jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the Peshawar High Court (PHC) to the tribal areas. Afridi, who is also parliamentary leader of the MNAs from FATA in the National Assembly, thanked the government and opposition parties for extending support to the bill.
MNA Sajid Hussain Turi from Kurram Agency said it was a welcoming step towards the uplift of the always neglected tribal areas, saying the tribal areas would get Rs 100 billion under the NFC Award while an additional Rs 100 billion per annum for the next 10 years for development in FATA. He said the people of FATA had rendered huge sacrifices in war against terrorism and now the time has come to heal their wounds. He said there is also a need to rehabilitate the displaced families in their native towns as quickly as possible so that they can live in dignified manner.
PML-N MNA Shahab Uddin Khan from Bajaur Agency said the historic step would ensure the initiation of political activities, local government system and allocation of 21 seats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial assembly. He said the people of FATA would now get all political, legal and civil rights as available to people of rest of the country.
According to him, merger of FATA with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the best solution keeping in view the close horizontal linkages of the tribal agencies and frontier regions, besides social, linguistic and cultural norms and traditions of the tribal people and people of the province. A defense analyst Brigadier Mehmood Shah (retd) pointed out that more than 80 percent of the population of FATA was in favor of merging FATA with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, saying it was a right decision towards a right direction as per the aspirations of the people.
He said the people of tribal areas had seen the worst law and order situation over the past many years and rendered matchless sacrifices for the country. He said that comprehensive reforms were need of the hour to address the issues of the tribesmen and bring them in the mainstream. "We would now proudly say to the world that we are Pakistani citizens and we would be getting equal rights," said Shahid Kazmi, a student and an activist.