ISLAMABAD: The federal government has decided to reconvene meeting of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Apex Committee in a bid to engage all stakeholders, including Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), for chalking out a unanimous counterterrorism strategy despite Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and ex-premier Imran Khan holding each other responsible for the latest spate of terrorism.
Informed sources told Business Recorder that following PTI’s refusal to participate in the February 2 meeting of the apex committee in Governor’s House in Peshawar in the wake of January 30 suicide attack in a mosque in Police Lines in the provincial capital, efforts are underway to engage with PTI for the next, yet to be scheduled meeting of the apex committee.
The objective of the meeting would be to take all the stakeholders and political forces on board with regard to ‘critical’ decisions about countering terrorism.
The sources maintained that the meeting will also review implementation status of the 20-point National Action Plan, which spells out specifics for countering terrorism and extremism approved on December 24, 2014, by the Parliament in wake of the December 16, 2014, Army Public School (APS) terrorist attack in Peshawar.
Speaking at the last apex committee meeting, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif criticized the eight years of PTI government in KP and questioned where the Rs417 billion have gone which were provided over the last 10 years to build capacity of KP Police and security forces.
PML-N leaders accuse PTI of having a soft corner for the militants and cite the release of hundreds of hard core militants and allowing thousands others to return from Afghanistan to resettle in their native towns, particularly in Malakand division, including Swat as proof.
In November last year, the former PTI government released over 100 TTP prisoners as ‘goodwill gesture’ following several rounds of ‘peace talks’ with the militant outfit which also allowed thousands others to return back to their towns, a move which prompted massive protests in various parts of the province against the resettlement of the militants in their towns.
In a televised address, PTI chairman Imran Khan accused the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) coalition government of using the recent wave of terrorism to gain “political mileage” and noted that terrorism was at its lowest-ever point during his government but resurfaced with a vengeance during the “current regime”. The former prime minister pinned the responsibility of rising terrorism on incumbent Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Talking to Business Recorder, Afzal Ali Shigri, a senior security analyst, said that lack of political will to implement the National Action Plan (NAP) in its true spirit was one of the reasons behind the resurgence of terrorism.
Since 2014, he added, no sitting government has made any serious effort to ensure implementation on the consensus points reached in the NAP.
According to Shigri, the TTP misused the ‘leniency’ shown by the previous government of PTI, with many TTP men returning from Afghanistan as result of the ‘peace talks’ who are believed to have re-joined their armed campaign against the state. “This is another reason behind the fresh wave of terrorism in the country,” he maintained.
According to the data compiled by Business Recorder from various official and independent sources, the terrorists carried out a total of 15 terror attacks since the beginning of 2023 with the January 30 suicide bombing of a mosque in Police Line in Peshawar the deadliest attack in which more than 100 policemen were killed.
Though the TTP had distanced itself from the attack on the mosque, its allied Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, had claimed responsibility of the attack. Data shows that 12 terror attacks were carried out in January and three in current month so far.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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