Bannu: Wearing big turbans of different colors, hundreds of tribal elders/Maliks of North Waziristan gathered at Miranshah, main town of North Waziristan, to stage a protest demonstration against the proposed deployment of Police in the area. The protesters, though apparently look cool but angry with the decision of introducing police force in the tribal areas that remained almost independent of any government control for centuries. They blocked the main Bannu-Miranshah Highway for four hours and were sitting on the main road. The elders were also accompanied by Khasadar force’s personnel who are the ultimate affectees of the decision of policing in tribal areas.
It was for the first time that the elders of the area were protesting against a decision of the government. Mostly, they were considered as pro-government tribe and would surrender to any of the government decision keeping in view the past history of the Maliks in the tribal areas. Maliks or tribal elders are also considered as the most respectful age group and their protest was, therefore joined by a good number of the youth of the area who are almost in favor of the merger.
Later on, the white-bearded protestors were brought to the table by the assistant commissioner Miranshah Taimur Afridi and after his assurance they announced to cease their protest and opened the road.
The merger of Ex-FATA into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in a hasty and almost clumsy way has created heaps of issues for the inexperienced PTI government and the establishment as well. It seems like the incumbent government and its bureaucracy doesn’t know how to tackle the most complicated issue of merging the hardcore tribal people into the settled areas. It happened time and again that the tribal people reacted strongly when some of the police officials tried to go there and ponder how to introduce police system in the newly merged tribal areas. From Bajaur to Waziristan, everywhere uniformly the people reacted and expressed their anger over the entry of those officials and considered it as intrusion into their “Freedom”.
The people of Bajaur held that they would not accept the already “Corrupt” police system while in Mohmand agency they were not even allowed to enter into the area. Same Happened in Khyber Tribal District recently when a group of police officials wanted to go there for the same purpose but they were also attacked by a mob. Thanks to the Tehsildar Jamrud who protected them from the angry mob and hid them in his office. Same are the feelings of North and South Waziristan.
Question is that what is wrong in the bottom that on one side the same tribal people were crying for merger while on the other hand they are not ready to accept the police system to replace the almost a century old Khasadar system that are the only police-like force for law and order situation therein?
Sharifullah Khan Dawar, a senior bureaucrat and author of a book on “Riwaj”, a way of life in tribal areas, says it is almost impossible to introduce police system in tribal areas without proper homework.
“You cannot impose police in an area who has separate socio-cultural set up and have a parallel judicial system of their own whom they are addicted to for centuries,” Dawar adding that first the government has to take the tribal people in confidence and then the police force would be trained properly in the lines of the tribal cultural and social set up. It has also been learnt from various sources that the government intends to set up police stations in the tribal districts.
A source inside Fata secretariat told The Truth Tracker on the condition of anonymity that more than 140 police stations are supposed to be set up in South Waziristan while 75 police stations are to be set up in North Waziristan tribal district.
“All are set to start construction work upon the proposed police station in the twin tribal districts of North and South Waziristan”. The source adds.
Not only there are constraints of socio-cultural taboos in the tribal areas, also there is a big issue of employment of Khasadar and levies forces already working in the tribal areas. Khasadar force jobs are hereditary and a son would join the force after the death or retirement of the Father. “This is almost a privilege not a duty. Therefore, a son succeeds his dad without any merit or advertisement”. Sharifullah told Truth Tracker.
He added that replacing Khasadar force with the police is a big challenge for the government as they are not ready to leave their centuries old privilege. A relatively high rank official of Khasadar force at Miranshah told that he and his subordinates have decided to resist the government’s decision at any cost and would go to the extreme limits if our demands were not met with.
“We would not allow anyone to enter into our area without our consent,” said a subaidar (low-ranked official) requesting anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to media over the issue. Some of the experts of the tribal affairs are also of the opinion that a group inside bureaucracy is not at all happy with the merger process and they are trying to retreat the merger process.
An official at Fata secretariat said he has learnt that the officials inside Fata secretariat don’t cooperate with the provincial government and it was evident when the provincial health authority directed health department in fata to be merged.
“The agency surgeons from all the seven tribal districts were absent from the meeting that was called by the Director General Health Services of KPK and there were rumors that they were directed by the health authorities of Fata to do so”. Said the official who want to remain anonymous.
But on the other hand, it seems that the provincial government was also not ready to absorb the newly merged areas. Anwar Sadat Dawar, a university graduate says that intentions of the KPK government are evident from the fact that they kept FATA out of the current budget.
“You see no promise has been fulfilled yet. Take the example of provincial assembly polls and local government elections in tribal areas etc. which all testifies on the fact that the KPK government considers fata as a sixth finger so far,” Dawar opined.
With every passing day, the process of merger is getting more and more complicated and if the government did not get serious, it is feared that the process of merger especially that of introducing police force into the tribal areas will face tough resistant from the tribal people and the dream of mainstreaming the tribal areas might suffer a lot without proper homework.
