Eight years after the 25th Constitutional Amendment of 2018 merged the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the promised transformation remains largely unrealized. The amendment incorporated the region into the Pakistani Constitution, creating a window for institution-building that closed abruptly in August 2021 with the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban's return to power. The Taliban resurgence did not create an institutional vacuum in the merged districts; it exposed and exploited one that had never been filled.
Historical Context: From FCR to Constitutional Void
Before the merger, the tribal belt was governed under the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), a colonial-era law that for over a century relied on collective punishment, administrative arrest, and discretionary justice rather than formal courts. Pakistan maintained this exceptional legal status for 70 years after independence. The 25th Amendment aimed to replace this system with constitutional governance, but institutional change has barely begun.
Since 2021, insurgent attacks have increased sharply across the merged districts and the rest of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, spilling into cities like Islamabad and Karachi. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has resurged, targeting security forces, tribal elders, and administrative officers. However, the militant landscape is fragmented: in North Waziristan, multiple groups retain command structures; Jamaat-ul-Ahrar operates in Bajaur and Mohmand under its own leadership; and the Islamic State Khorasan Province launches occasional attacks, causing high casualties.
Escalating Violence and Institutional Gaps
In 2025, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recorded over 1,600 attacks—the highest in recent years and 48 percent higher than the previous year. The state has responded with operations, curfews, and intelligence-based actions, but has failed to deliver the functioning civilian institutions promised by the merger. Ibrahim Shinwari, a senior journalist covering the region, described the daily reality: "In Khyber, my home district, we cannot travel after sunset, not even me, despite being both a local resident and a journalist." He added: "People are deeply concerned about the deteriorating security situation, but their frustrations extend beyond that... There is also growing distrust of the current government's perceived failure to prioritize the development of the merged districts."
This gap was starkly illustrated in Bajaur in August 2024. After a year of escalating militant attacks and killings of tribal elders, the administration convened a peace jirga. The talks collapsed when militants refused to surrender weapons or cede territory, and attacks resumed within days. There was no police investigation, no prosecutor, and no court for the community to turn to—exposing not the failure of the jirga but the absence of any alternative.
Institutional Failures: Police, Courts, and Land Records
The conversion of Levies and Khassadars into a regular police force was legislated in 2019, but nearly 29,000 personnel were absorbed without adequate training, equipment, or investigative capacity. Successive federal development budgets have had to allocate billions of rupees to build police stations and posts. Regular courts now function in every merged district, but often in makeshift premises—a former girls' college in Miranshah was pressed into service as a judicial complex. Purpose-built complexes remain unfinished, some judicial officers hear cases from adjoining settled districts, and many citizens must travel outside their districts for justice. Case disposal is slow, and prosecutions are few. Land records, whose absence fuels conflict, still await systematic settlement as required under the merger. Local governments remain the weakest link.
Fiscal Default and Unfulfilled Promises
The merger carried a financial promise: the federation agreed to reserve three percent of the national divisible pool for the merged districts for ten years—roughly 100 billion rupees annually—to finance required institutions. However, this promise has largely gone unfulfilled. Sindh and Balochistan resisted surrendering their share, and the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award has not been revised to reflect the merger, leaving the country operating under a formula that expired in 2015. According to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, of the roughly 360 billion rupees due by 2024, much never arrived. Fiscal default underlies the institutional one: courts, police stations, and land settlement stall not only due to lack of political will but because the pledged money has not been delivered.
The provincial police have requested an additional eight billion rupees to complete security infrastructure schemes in the merged districts after nearly all funds released under this year's development program were spent before project completion. While the need is real, the underlying principle is that the urgent diverts funds meant for the important. Operations consume money, jirgas absorb disputes, and institutions like the judiciary, police, and local government are postponed again.
Community Dispute Resolution vs. Formal Justice
The problem is not with jirgas themselves. For many, community dispute resolution is quicker, cheaper, and easier to understand than the formal system. Shafiq Shinwari, a local businessman, noted that although the jirga offers "no right of appeal," many people rely on it because the formal justice system remains slow and inaccessible. Malik Abdul Razaq Afridi, interviewed for research on jirgas, explained that people take even family and property matters to the jirga because there is "no other effective alternative." This preference is rational, but there is a difference between choosing mediation over litigation and having no court worth approaching. The first is exercising a right; the second is being denied one.
The Way Forward: Completing the Merger
Interviews with young people in the merged districts suggest that patience will not last for future generations. These educated, connected youth know their constitutional rights and do not accept that respect for tradition should cost them the institutions every other Pakistani district takes for granted. The solutions are known: complete the police transition properly, release the eight billion rupees tied to a time-bound plan for police stations, training, and investigative capacity; bring justice physically into districts through judicial complexes, prosecutors, legal aid, and land record settlement; link jirgas and dispute resolution councils to courts and administrative institutions with safeguards for women and vulnerable groups, voluntary participation, and the right to appeal. The aim is not to displace what people trust but to ensure there is always something more to offer.
A merger that exists in the Constitution but not in the courthouse, police station, or land records is incomplete. The 25th Constitutional Amendment extended constitutional citizenship to the former FATA. Eight years later, for most people in the merged districts, that citizenship still exists mainly on paper.
