It’s been four years since the people from Orkazai have been living in camps in Hangu district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. These IDPs have been protesting against the government for their repatriation for more than a year now. While the military has claimed to have cleared the Orakzai Agency of militants a long time ago, they have been told that their return is not possible to the agency because of the volatile law and order in their native areas. The inevitable question than is — how secure have they been in the camps?
The answer to which is not difficult to find from the chain of events in the last few months. The very threat because of which these people escaped has followed them. This might be the first major attack that has resulted in deaths but definitely not the first time that the IDPs of Orakzai have been targeted. A similar attack was reported back in June, when rockets were fired at the same camp, militants had threatened them to vacate or face the consequences. Several families, who could afford, had to further migrate to Kohat and Peshawar. Those who could not, now live in a state of perpetual fear and ask: what is our fault?
The numbers keep increasing, Pakistan now has more than two million IDPs from the conflict in Fata alone. A strong feeling of deprivation has already engulfed the people of Fata, particularly those that have been displaced. The Uthmanzai Wazir, the largest tribe from North Waziristan, has called for a grand Jirga to march towards Islamabad on October 10. Similar protests have been held by the homeless from the Khyber Agency. The bomb attack in Hangu will further exacerbate the feeling of victimisation. But does the government have any plan to relocate these people back to their homes? Or, is this another failure which will come back to haunt us in the near future?
Published in The Express Tribune, September 30th, 2014.
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What is apparent from the picture is that despite millions of dollars,spent and available to security forces, they are still not competent in the safe handling of weapons. Two out of four that are visible could discharge their weapons unintentionally, giving new meaning to the phrase "khud kar hathyar".
I don't know who I should be more scared of - the terrorist or the security forces with their unsafe weapon handling practices.
What do you want from NS and his interior minister, they are busy saving their chairs by inflicting violence in Model Town Lahore and then in Islamabad and thought that will scare the dickens out of opposition but too bad it backfired on them. Do they really care for these refugees, I doubt it, remember the whole country is conditioned to look the other way because they think these pukhtuns has created their own problems and they should clean it up themselves. I recall a cousin of mine who was a jail superintendent at Kohat where Wali Khan and others were incarcerated during General Zia's regime. According to him that one day a helicopter flew in with some Generals and his orderly ran to his house and yelling " the foreigners have come." To the people in the Tribal Areas, the Punjabi generals were and are foreigners and now the way they have been treated by the Army and NS government , they might as well be foreigners to them and of course foreigners don't care for foreigners. This perception of the people got to be eliminated by good management and orderly help other wise it's repercussions will lost for decades to come. I should know these people because my maternal family is from South Waziristan.