PESHAWAR: Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) Chairman Maulana Fazlur Rehman has said the government’s attitude is responsible for the failure of mainstreaming Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and not the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR).
Addressing a FATA Youth Conference on Saturday, he asked if the FCR had prevented the government from carrying out development projects such as construction of schools, colleges, hospital and roads in tribal areas, and added that if the FCR did not stop government from carrying out these initiatives then the government itself is responsible for all the wrong in FATA.
He alleged that the leadership wanted to abolish FCR because it was a set of rules and laws tailored by the British, adding that the leadership wanted to replace it with hundreds of other laws which were made by the British.
Because these leaders did not allow the tribal people to have a say in their own affairs, Fazlur Rehman stated that he was ashamed of calling such people ‘leaders of Pashtuns’.
The JUI-F chief said that he supported the notion that decision of FATA’s merger with KP should be left with the people of the tribal areas. He also added that he did not consider tribal people to be backward.