The article 247 which governs FATA and PATA (from Malakand to Dera Bugti) was probably made specifically to crush the resistance of Pukhtoons and Balochs and make them submissive to the might of the British Raj. This law afflicted all the constitutions made in the last 62 years as if we were still a colony of British. Our media, though, is rapt in the discussion on Article 248 (about indemnity of the President) as if we remove him, all problems would go away. In the din over 248, they have totally ignored Article 247, which makes a citizen less than a citizen in this country, enabling the state to wield the stick of FCR -40 against him. The FCR-40, by the way, is a set of draconian 'laws that is part of the Article 247 of constitution. According to FCR-40, for a petty crime that a citizen of PATA or FATA commits, his whole house can be blown to pieces by the authorities and that in complete disregard to all the innocent members of his family. Some idiots among politicians claim it is a 'just law, as long as it does not apply to them, of course. This outrage of a 'law was blatantly racial too in the sense it applies to Pukhtoons and Balochs only who resisted the British and not the Punjabis who were in cahoots with the British. According to my knowledge, the issue of FCR-40 is not even to be discussed in the constitutional committee of Reza Rabbani that is trying to fix the battered 1973 constitution. It is in no way Islamic but mullahs in power, like the MMA-types, never publicly reject it because they are always empowered outrageous regulations like this by conspiring with the military. As for ANP, their chief spokesman Zahid Khan is form Dir, an area governed by the FCR -40 and ANP dare not raise a voice against it after some 200 of its workers and leaders were attacked recently. I wonder whether the house of Senator Zahid Khan, or for that matter that of Hameedullah Jan Afridi (Minister for Environment) would ever be razed to ground like common tribal citizens? I guess not. They live happily in their plush residences in Islamabad and have plazas there. They are not unduly worried about the poor man in PATA and FATA. The role of Nawaz Sharif is especially deplorable in this regard. He is the spanner in the works of the constitutional amendments and is stopping it all through his stubborn opposition to the name change of the NWFP. May be we should extend the writ of Article 247 to Lahore too so that we can recover the money he is accused of having laundered and stashed abroad? -DR. KHURRUM SHAUKAT YUSAFZAI, Peshawar, March 6.