Justice system in FATA

The traditional Justice system in FATA is comprised of "JARGA" . Jarga is actually the jury and its operation mostly voluntary. The jarga members who have to make a decision are mostly called "WAKDARAN" with little dialect changes in various parts of FATA. Traditionally, before the British impact on the area the Jarga members were considered the wisest of all the people, and were selected on consensus of the conflicting parties. Even now when some conflict arises, both of the parties give "Wak" to the Jarga members and if any party does not accept the decision of the Jarga , the Jarga is authorised to impose any punishment or compensation over the non cooperative party. The punishment is mostly financial and mostly it is taken as security in advance in shape of weapons, mostly guns(Topak) of any type. The Jarga members are mostly from various subtribes to ensure the transparancy in the process of decision making. After the establishment of British rule over the area the Political Agent( The administrative officer, with King like powers) had started his role in delivery of justice. He is the executive as well as judiciary, and his verdict is final according to FCR. FCR(Frontier crimes Regulation) is a law made by British rulers to control the tribal people. The most famous of the FCR is 40 FCR according to which controling of crimes is the collective responsibility of all the tribe and if some crime has taken place in the area of any tribe, any member of that tribe including the minors could be arrested and kept in Jail for as long as the authorities wish.
The FCR has brought many curses to the society, the love of absolute power being the most nasty. this law prohibits the people to speak against any action of the government and they can not take part in any political movement which can bring a change to the situation. The stignancy in the system played a big role in creating militancy in Tribal areas. Most people who have ranks in militants belong to the ignored and low socio economic class. These people are just taking revenge of their sufferings from all the society. The militants when started their operation in FATA simultaneously started a system of conflict resolution, whereby they resolved some very longstanding conflicts and nobody could reject the decision of Taliban. When the military started operation against taliban, they left the process of decision making among the people and now the people are thinking of returning to the old system of dispute resolution through Jarga.

Customs and Traditions of FATA

FATA though a part of Pukhtoon society has almost same traditions and customs as other parts of Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa and Afghanistan but some are very unique to FATA only. Below is a breif glimpse of FATA customs
Festivals: More than 99 % of population is muslim population here so the festivals of Muslims i.e. Eid ul Fitr the EID after Ramadhan fasting month and Eid ul Azha are celebrated with great pump and show. The Eid ul Fitr is Celebrated just after the holy month of Ramadhan wehn the people have completed their fassting for about a month. In FATA this is celebrated by arranging tea parties for friends and relatives. Every family purchase sweets and bakery items before Eid. The friends and relatives visit each other homes and offer good wishes to each other. Children specially enjoy the festival as their parents buy them new clothes and shoes etc for this special day. On the Eid day every child tries to greet their elders 1st to secure their prize money " DA Akhtar Paise". The money collected by the children is mostly spent the same day by the children as small businesspeople arrange small stalls of toys near each village, and every child tries to purchase a better " Vehicle, Doll, Tractor and in recent times Gun, Helicopter or aeroplane toy".
The current insecurity situation has increased the tendency of children to like more weapon like toys like Guns, Pistols, Tanks, Helicopters and so on. The people working on human rights, child rights and peacefull world are invited to pay some attention to this matter and SAVE OUR FUTURE.
Eid Ul Azha, is celebrated on 10th of Zel Hajjah just after the Islamic Pilgrimage " Haj" world wide. The dates of islamic calender months are lunar and as such there may come some difference among various areas on specific days. Some may celebrate it a day earlier than others and so on. FATA areas dont have an independant lunar committee and mostly follow the committees of adjacent setteled areas. One reason the people say is the hilly nature of the area where seeing a new moon"Crescent" is very difficult in comparison to the Plan areas where the chance of seeing it are far better. As a result people of Mohmand And Bajaur Agencies follow district Charsadda, Khyber Agency follow Peshawar, Kurram and Orakzai either follow the national committee or the decisions of hungo and Kohat committees. North and south Waziristan follow the Bannu committee. Perhaps the mostly enjoyed night for north waziristan people had been the night before Eid each year when people from each village arranged a vehicle to visit the Bannu city and know the decision of the Crescent committee.
The eid Ul Azha or the eid of Sacrifice is an ocassion for even the poorest of the poor to get high protein diet. Everybody that can afford slaughter a lamb, goat, cow, bull, or baffalow and divide the meat on 3. one part for himself or herself, one part for relatives and one part for common poor. As a result of too much slaughtered animals the poorest get alot of meat and enjoy the proteins atleast for a few days.

FATA Tradition at a Glance

Although FATA shares many of its traditions with settled areas of NWFP but some traditions are very unique to FATA.

• Wedding and marriages : Most of the marriages in FATA are arranged marriages which means that the parents of both boy and the girl decide whether to get their offsprings married or not. Although a few young people dare to have love marriages but they mostly fail. The main reason of the failure is that the Boys and Girls start love at their early teen ages when they are either students or do nothing. The financial unstable condition of the boy usually stop the parents of the girl to deny the relationship. Marriage either love or arranged is celebrated with great pump and show. Specifically the family of the wedding boy enjoys the situation so much. The celebrations are started with folk music the typical pukhtoon instruments RABAB and MANGAY. Rabab is a guitar like instrument which has multiple strings and Mangay is the pot in which d

FATA What is good what is bad

FATA is acronym for fedrally administered tribal areas. this area is situated on the boundary of afghanistan and pakistan, although it is adjacent to the NWF province but it is under administrative controle of the fedration capital. FATA has a long history of its traditions and culture. The recent militancy has attached a lot of importance to FATA. this blogs aim is to bring the reality to u and update u on the recent developments.