PESHAWAR (The Thursday Times) — JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has claimed that the federal government is considering reversing the 2018 merger of the former tribal areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, saying senior officials told him directly that it was a mistake.
“The merger of Fata with this province is being proposed to be revoked. High-level government men have directly told me that the decision to merge the region was a mistake,” Fazl told a convention of his party’s digital media workers from the merged districts in Peshawar on Monday. “Those running this system have told me directly that they want to revoke the merger and restore its previous status.”
He named no officials and gave no evidence, and the government has not publicly responded to the claim.
‘A laboratory’
Fazl, who opposed the merger at the time, said the districts had been made a “laboratory”. He said that nearly a decade on, the administrative system of the settled areas had still not been established there, with no land revenue system and no proper police system in place.
“Today, the issue is not political or constitutional. It’s about Fata’s resources and its economy,” he said, linking the debate to the region’s minerals. He said he was not opposed to foreign investment, but that all agreements concerning the region’s natural wealth should be made public.
The province’s governor, Faisal Karim Kundi, said on Sunday that the people of KP have the first right to its resources, rejecting claims that its minerals would be handed to outsiders under governor’s rule.
Governor’s rule
Fazl also challenged the way governor’s rule and an emergency were imposed in the province on October 11. He said the governor should have written to the president, and that no such letter was written, calling the process against legal and constitutional procedures. He also questioned why two systems had been introduced, with one part of the province under governor’s rule and another under an emergency.
He said he had become the target of a character assassination campaign since raising these questions, and that he would not be intimidated. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told the Senate last week that the JUI-F itself had wanted governor’s rule in KP.
