A couple of days ago, the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pervaiz Khattak, gave an interview to a Pashto TV channel in a restaurant in Islamabad’s Kohsar market.

During the interview, he confidently said the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) of North Waziristan are being looked after properly by the provincial government. He went a step further to say that hospitals in Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan (D.I Khan) are stacked with medicines, that the provincial coffers have been opened up to cater to the needs of the IDPs, that the IDPs are not dying of hunger, that they are not protesting against the poor handling of this issue by the officials concerned, and that they are completely satisfied with the way the government and its machinery is treating them.

To top it all, the CM casually shrugged off his responsibilities by stressing that if everything is normal in the IDP camps then there is no need for him to visit those places. He wrapped up his arguments, saying if the situation aggravates he would visit the IDPs immediately to address their problems on one day notice.

Both the federal and the provincial governments have abandoned their responsibility towards the IDPs of North Waziristan ever since the sit-ins in Islamabad stole the limelight from the plight of the displaced people.

The saddest part is that the usual insipid statements (that have become a hallmark of our rulers) were never issued by the government regarding the crises being faced by the displaced people on a daily basis.

Half hearted attempts of rehabilitation combined with short term and partisan approach has left a million IDPs in the lurch.

Malik Ghulam Wazir, the General Secretary of the Mutaasereen Aman Committee, a group comprising of IDPs from North Waziristan who are looking after the welfare of their fellow countrymen, is of the opinion that their misery has been used as a political football for petty partisan issues by the ruling elite of Pakistan. "Both the federal and provincial governments’ apathy towards our plight has left us with no choice but to rethink our status as Pakistani nationals," he bitterly commented while criticising the government’s poor treatment of displaced people.

The IDPs have also been deeply hurt by the casual attitude shown by the rulers towards their miseries and are worried over the fact that their plight suddenly disappeared from the national discourse in the blink of an eye.

Such developments led the IDPs to observe black day on 14th August this year. "What kind of freedom should we celebrate when we are not allowed to go to other provinces in our own country?" said Ali Jamal Dawar from Miranshah. "We are not even free to bury our dead in Bannu. A family from the Aidak tribe was bombarded by security forces when they were taking a funeral procession of a family member to their ancestral village after they were not allowed to bury the dead in Bannu," he recalled.

With the national media lost in its own pandemonium on the developments taking shape in Islamabad, the IDPs pity themselves for only receiving the short end of the bargain. A considerable number of people in Bannu believe that in the absence of media coverage the officials who were supposed to look after the welfare of the displaced people, are shell shocked due to their torpid state and inability to deal with crisis situation.

Criticising the media’s knee jerk reaction towards important issues, Sher Mohammad Wazir from Mir Ali complained that the media has failed miserably in assessing the gravity of the situation. "Our ire has been aroused amidst this pointless imbroglio," he stressed.

A large number of the displaced people believe that the neighbouring war torn country of Afghanistan is looking after the IDPs in a more humane way as compared to the treatment they receive within their own country.

It is no secret that the exact number of IDPs crossing over to Afghanistan has given chills to authorities in Pakistan. Recent comments the Afghan president made while meeting a group of elders representing the IDPs in Afghanistan, if taken in the correct context, has the power to put the Pakistani authorities to shame.

Throughout the month of August, displaced people of Waziristan in Bannu have been rallying and processions have been frequently taken out by the displaced people of North Waziristan in Bannu, demanding that they be allowed to go back to their ancestral lands amidst the government claims that more than half of North Waziristan Agency (NWA) has been cleared by the military and it was safe to return to the area.

During the rallies, protestors repeatedly reminded the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mian Nawaz Sharif that the IDP issue was still fresh and the government should tread very carefully over this issue.

Moreover, the protestors warned that if their condition remains the same till September 10, they would launch protests outside the governor house in Peshawar and then march towards Islamabad in pursuit of justice at a time when their great sacrifices for the country have been conveniently downplayed by official sources. The needful should be carried out on war footing without further delay.

Presently, the IDPs are living under a long and dark shadow of uncertainty.

Well intended moves on the part of the government at this point in time would greatly help in restoring the confidence of the tribal people in Pakistan. The displaced people should be provided with every possible help so that they can start lives afresh that has been otherwise blown into smithereens by the poor policies of the civilian government and the military top brass.

Lest we forget, it is important to remind ourselves that the experience that the IDPs are going through would forever be seared into the minds of these people, and if the image lingers on in the memory for too long the resulting situation would not augur well for the internal stability of Pakistan in the years to follow.