Over 6,000 FATA people martyred in war against terrorism, lawmakers told

Nearly 7,000 have been injured since 2001, almost Rs4 billion paid to families of martyrs so far

At least 6,112 people belonging to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) have been killed and 6,707 others injured in the ongoing war against terrorism since its inception in 2001, Pakistani lawmakers were told on Tuesday.

The statistics were revealed during the meeting of National Assembly’s standing committee on the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) in Islamabad, where officials of Fata law and order division briefed the parliamentarians, Express News reported.

Families of the martyred have been paid 3.7 billion rupees in compensation so far.

According to the briefing, families of 244 levies and 178 khasadar personnel were among the 5,690 civilians, who had received the compensation amount.

Rupees three million were given to each family of the martyred government employees between 2001 to 2015, said the Fata officials, adding that residential plots worth Rs2 million were also given to each family of the martyrs besides the usual Rs3 million compensation amount after 2015.



They said there were 54 compensation cases pending before courts. On that, the NA standing committee directed to resolve the issue and compensate families of the victims at the earliest.

Under the Citizen Losses Compensation Programme, the government is also providing Rs400,000 to Fata residents to rebuild houses that have been completely destroyed because of militancy and Rs160,000 for partially damaged houses.

The ministry further stated that the Fata Secretariat had released Rs6.3 billion to the political administrations of five agencies where Internally Displaced People (IDPs) had started returning, while Rs5.27 billion had been distributed among 15,139 beneficiaries.

Similarly, Rs50 million have been approved for the revamping of mosques in South Waziristan.