LANDI KOTAL: A handful of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-F supporters on Tuesday blocked the Peshawar-Torkham highway here against the federal government’s plan to merge tribal areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Holding party flags and banners inscribed with anti-merger slogans, the protesters also chanted against the federal government and the political forces supporting the merger plan. Traffic on the main road remained suspended for nearly two hours.

Fata Grand Alliance leaders Malak Khan Marjan, a few local pro-administration elders and Khyber Bazaar Union president Gul Afridi were also present.

JUI-F Fata leader Mufti Ejaz, while addressing the protesters, said the merger plan was not acceptable to his party as it was devised without taking majority of the tribesmen into confidence. He warned of serious repercussions if the plan was implemented in haste.

Another JUI-F leader from Jamrud, Said Kabeer Afridi, alleged that the merger plan was a foreign agenda which his party had rejected.

Malak Khan Marjan demanded of the federal government to initiate development projects in the terrorism-affected tribal areas rather than merging the region with an impoverished province. Gul Afridi said thousands of displaced families from different parts of Fata were still awaiting their return and the federal government should make arrangements for their early return and rehabilitation.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2018