Zardari urges government to immediately table Fata Reforms Bill

Former President and Co-Chairman Pakistan Peoples' Party, Asif Ali Zardari has urged the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government to table FATA Reforms Bill immediately in the Parliament to pave way for merger of tribal areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as part of the National Action Plan (NAP). The PPP Co-chairman expressed these views in a message on the third anniversary of the attack on Army Public School (APS) Peshawar. He also deplored that National Action Plan (NAP), devised to root out terrorism and avenge the blood of the martyrs, had not been implemented in letter and spirit.
Zardari said failure in implementing the NAP amounted to rejecting the sacrifices of countless Shuhada (martyrs) of the armed forces, paramilitary forces, police and the civilians in the fight against militancy and extremism. He said FATA reforms promised in the NAP were thrown to the wind as the proposed bill was mysteriously withdrawn from the agenda of the National Assembly without any reason a few days ago.
"On this day we also call for bringing all perpetrators of the heinous crime to justice and accountability of those who have failed in implementation of the NAP," he said. The former president lamented that banned militant organizations had resurrected under different names behind the façade of charity work.
"On this day three years ago the young students, teachers and staff of the Army Public School Peshawar bore the brunt of the tyrants and religious fanatics and shed their blood that brought the entire nation together to resolve to fight the extremists to the finish. All those who were martyred in the gruesome attack on APS that day are national heroes and heroines and while we salute them we also pledge that their sacrifices will not go in vain," he said.