Protests mark sixth anniversary of Pakistan tribal region’s merger with northwestern KP province
PESHAWAR: Six years after the merger of Pakistan’s northwestern tribal territories with the adjoining Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, protesters in Khyber tribal district observed May 31 as a “black day” on Friday, saying they wanted people to know on the anniversary of the event that the integration had “totally failed.”
The merger of tribal areas, officially executed in 2018, aimed to integrate these historically semi-autonomous places into the national mainstream. These regions, collectively known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), were used as a buffer by the British colonial rulers to mitigate the threat of the Russian Empire during the “Great Game.”
The buffer was governed through the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR), often criticized for legalizing harsh measures such…
