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Pakistan Passes Bill To Merge Tribal Belt Areas

Pakistan's lower house of parliament, with rare support from the opposition, has passed a bill to align tribal belt areas with the rest of the country.

At least five million people are living in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

The legislation, pushed by the ruling party, envisages administratively merging the semi-autonomous tribal regions bordering Afghanistan into the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for the first time in the 70 years since Pakistan's creation.

After Thursday's approval in the National Assembly, the bill will to go to the upper house of parliament, or Senate, for endorsement there before it can become law, The Associated Press reported. 

“FATA will be mainstreamed into the economy, people will have the same rights as the rest of Pakistan, their development will get accelerated and the security will situation improve, because the KP (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) infrastructure - police and rangers and others will go right to the border, there will be no vacuum now which other people can fill,” said Sartaj Aziz, lawmaker from government side, as quoted by AP. 

“They should have to obtain the opinion of the FATA people, what is their will, do they want to merge with or be in a separate province or a council? But they, the government, did not get the opinion of the FATA people, they did not ask because the majority of the FATA people demand a separate province,” said Muhammad Jamaluddin, opposition lawmaker from Islamic party Jamiat Ulema Islam.

Its purpose is also to abolish colonial-era laws, such as the ones that call for punishing an entire tribe if one of its members is found guilty of crime, Pakistani lawmakers said. 

“We want to ascribe 100 billion rupees for the period of 10 years for the development of FATA (Federal Administrative Tribal Area), and we need commitment from this house and all the political parties on this, so we can provide the same facilities, same schools, same colleges, same universities, same hospitals and same system which is available to other parts of Pakistan,” Shahid Khaqan Abassi, Prime Minister of Pakistan, said. 

Pakistan got its independence from British rule in 1947.

Pakistan Passes Bill To Merge Tribal Belt Areas

The bill will to go to Pakistan’s upper house of parliament, Senate, for endorsement there before it can become law.

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Pakistan's lower house of parliament, with rare support from the opposition, has passed a bill to align tribal belt areas with the rest of the country.

At least five million people are living in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

The legislation, pushed by the ruling party, envisages administratively merging the semi-autonomous tribal regions bordering Afghanistan into the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for the first time in the 70 years since Pakistan's creation.

After Thursday's approval in the National Assembly, the bill will to go to the upper house of parliament, or Senate, for endorsement there before it can become law, The Associated Press reported. 

“FATA will be mainstreamed into the economy, people will have the same rights as the rest of Pakistan, their development will get accelerated and the security will situation improve, because the KP (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) infrastructure - police and rangers and others will go right to the border, there will be no vacuum now which other people can fill,” said Sartaj Aziz, lawmaker from government side, as quoted by AP. 

“They should have to obtain the opinion of the FATA people, what is their will, do they want to merge with or be in a separate province or a council? But they, the government, did not get the opinion of the FATA people, they did not ask because the majority of the FATA people demand a separate province,” said Muhammad Jamaluddin, opposition lawmaker from Islamic party Jamiat Ulema Islam.

Its purpose is also to abolish colonial-era laws, such as the ones that call for punishing an entire tribe if one of its members is found guilty of crime, Pakistani lawmakers said. 

“We want to ascribe 100 billion rupees for the period of 10 years for the development of FATA (Federal Administrative Tribal Area), and we need commitment from this house and all the political parties on this, so we can provide the same facilities, same schools, same colleges, same universities, same hospitals and same system which is available to other parts of Pakistan,” Shahid Khaqan Abassi, Prime Minister of Pakistan, said. 

Pakistan got its independence from British rule in 1947.

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