People from FATA who live in Rawalpindi have been put under surveillance.
He said the whereabouts of all such individuals were being gathered in Rawalpindi and three other districts. Of the total individuals from the tribal areas, 4,300 were living/doing business in the Rawalpindidistrict, 610 in Attock, 245 in Jhelum and 280 in Chakwal.
Police considering issuing them chip-based national identity cards equipped with added security features
“The objective of compiling the data of all such individuals is to keep vigilance on them,” the senior police official said. “Police are also considering containing them to a specific place and issuing them chip-based identity cards.”
KP’s Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak has warned against the profiling. Meanwhile, on the same day that there was a drone attack in Kurram Agency, the federal cabinet agreed to the recommendations of the FATA reforms committee report, marking a major turning point. The proposed plan, as of now, is to implement a 5-year transitional plan during which time the FCR will be replaced by the Rewaj Act, previously called Nizam-e-Adl. Nobody seems to have a final draft version of this act, although there have already been protests about it because people suspect that the act is another version of custom as cruel governance.
Two days after the approval of the reforms, a number of maliks filed a case with the supreme court of KP, challenging the legality of the reforms.
I suspect these trends will go hand-in-hand: the juridical reforms of FATA will be coupled with a regime of high and low tech surveillance and racial profiling. Even as, in the best case scenario, the juridical otherness of FATA melts, a new regime (closer to that of ruling difference in the US i.e. racial profiling) will stick to the skin.