Pakistan: The unfortunate people of FATA

The Taliban do not want them back. This is what it looks like from the way the Internally Displaced People (IDP) from the Khyber Agency had been attacked at the Arbab Niaz stadium in Peshawar on Sunday. The IDPs were getting themselves verified in the makeshift government office in the stadium to claim sufficient food to take back home. The suicide attack khat killed four people was a message that in spite of all the tall claims of the government about Khyber being cleansed of terrorists and safe for its inhabitants to finally return, the ground realities are different. What would be the fate of those who had already returned to the Agency? Are they any safer? What awaits those planning to return? Will they too be killed just as many of their compatriots have been in the IDP camps, because this was not the first time that the IDPs had been attacked.

Terrorism in Pakistan morphs into as unusual forms as the position the government takes to deal with the terrorists. The so-called peace process is going nowhere. The ministry of interior has been giving muffled responses to questions about the progress achieved so far. At times it shifts the blame for this winding process to the coordinating committee appointed by the Taliban for their penchant to play to the gallery rather than to persuade the Taliban to behave like good boys. On another occasion the ministry is found baffled at the Taliban’s refusal to abide by the ceasefire and keeping to its undeterred position of attacking the state. Stripped of any meaning, the dialogue process seems a mere eye wash or could it be a Taliban strategy to buy time?

For how long will the people of FATA suffer? The situation is too much for them. They are neither safe in their own homes nor in the custody of the government. It has been found through credible research that the situation of the IDPs has been deplorable. They are living in one of the most unsuitable environments for human existence. Many of their children have died of contagious diseases. The government has always been indifferent to the tribal areas, treating them as if alien, whose culture does not allow any sophisticated dealing On the top of that we infested their areas with the Taliban who have now become a headache even for the government. It is not surprising that the Taliban are biting the very hand that once fed them.