GHALANAI: All Fata Siyasi Ittehad and workers of various political parties held `go FCR go` rally here on Saturday and demanded of the federal government to immediately merge the Federally Administered Tribal Areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The rally started from Ghalanai Bazaar and turned into a public meeting outside Mohmand Press Club. The participants chanted slogans demanding abolition of FCR and Fata-KP merger. Fata MNA Shahji Gul Afridi also participated in the rally.

Speaking on the occasion, All Fata Siyasi Ittehad vice-president Nisar Mohmand, Shaji Gul and other leaders said that the government should immediately merge Fata with KP.

They categorically rejected the proposed Rewaj Act and demanded of the federal government to give equal share in the NFC award to Fata. They said that some opportunist leaders and elders were the main hurdle to the Fata reforms.

They said that leaders of all politicalparties in Fata and the tribesmen would participate in the proposed sit-in in Islamabad on Oct 9. They said that before 2018 general election the tribesmen should be given representation in the provisional assembly and the tribal areas should be merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The speakers alleged that JUI-F leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman had been opposing the Fata reforms for advancing own interests though the National Assembly and KP Assembly had supported the reforms.

Nisar Mohmand said that the Fata reforms committee had presented the report which showed that 90 per cent of the tribesmen wanted merger of Fata with KP. He said that nobody could stop the reform process in the tribal areas. He said that the federal government was not sincere in the Fata reforms and that was why they and the civil bureaucracy were standing with the privileged groups.

The ittehad president, Saeed Khan, said that thousands of tribesmen were languishing in lockups in tribal areas under the collective responsibility clause of FCR.