National

Political agent proposes establishment of 76 police stations in South Waziristan

December 23, 2017

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Local residents travel on a vehicle as they cross a military checkpost on the outskirts of Mingora, the capital of Swat valley on March 25, 2010. The former tourist resort, once favoured for its pristine natural beauty and skiing, slipped out of Islamabad's control in July 2007 after radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah mounted a violent campaign to enforce Islamic sharia law. Pakistan launched a blistering air and ground offensive in the valley after militants marched out of Swat and advanced to within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of the capital Islamabad in April 2009. Most of the two million people who fled their homes have returned, but sporadic outbreaks of violence continue, while some fear the Swat Taliban are regrouping elsewhere in the northwest. More than 3,000 people have been killed in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan since July 2007 in a deadly campaign blamed on Islamist militants opposed to the government's alliance with the United States. AFP PHOTO/ A. MAJEED (Photo credit should read A Majeed/AFP/Getty Images)

ISLAMABAD: Though the government has yet to evolve a consensus on the long-awaited Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) reforms issue, the political administration in South Waziristan Agency (SWA), in a welcome move, has proposed the establishment of 76 police stations in the trouble-hit agency.

The political agent of SWA, in his letter to the FATA secretariat’s law and order department in Peshawar, proposed the establishment of a total of 76 police station stations with 9,160 staff members, needed under the FATA reforms process.

Out of the total 76 police stations, a grand total of 45 police stations would be set up in Wanna, headquarter of the SWA, while the remaining would be established in various parts of the agency.

According to the letter, a copy of which is available with Pakistan Today, a total of 1,000 staff members are required for the police stations in Sarwekai.

Similarly, it was proposed that the Ladha’s assistant political agent required 22 police stations with 1,080 staffers in it, while Wanna’s assistant political agent required 45 police stations with a total staff of 7,080.

The issue of the merger of the FATA with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa faced delay due to strong resistance from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) President Mehmood Khan Achakzai.

The FATA Reforms Bill has been pending with the National Assembly for months as the government failed to win over Fazl on the proposed reforms for the tribal areas.

Even Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa held a meeting with the JUI-F chief few days ago but were unable to persuade him.

FATA is being governed under a colonial law called Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) under which three basic rights are not applicable to the residents of FATA i.e. appeal, wakeel and daleel (the right to request a change to a conviction in any court, the right to legal representation and the right to present reasoned evidence, respectively).