PESHAWAR: It is the government?s attitude not Frontier Crimes Regulation that has hindered the mainstreaming of Federally Administered Tribal Areas, said Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl chief Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman.

While addressing FATA Youth Conference in Peshawar on Saturday, Fazl posed a question to the leadership concerned, asking if the FCR ? which is also known as the black law ? has barred them from constructing schools and colleges in the tribal areas or has stopped them from making hospitals and roads or barred them from providing facilities to the tribal people.

If FCR has not done any of these then, the JUI-F chief said, it should not be blamed for whatever wrong is happening in the tribal areas.

Fazl maintained that the leadership concerned wants to abolish FCR saying it is a set of rules made and brought into use during the British Raj. However, he added, in the place of one such law ? FCR ? ?these people? want to impose hundreds of laws that were made by the British.

Fazl said he was ashamed of calling these people leaders of Pashtuns who are not willing to consider tribal people an authority in their own matter.

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But, the JUI-F chief said, he does not consider tribal people to be backward. He added their opinions should be respected and the decision of Fata?s merger into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should be left on people of the tribal areas.

However, leaders of other political parties went ahead in their demand for KP-Fata merger as they held a rally in Islamabad near D-Chowk that falls in the Red Zone of the federal capital. As their rally was under way, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi called the key leaders for a meeting over the matter.