Pakistan Today

Lawmakers urge multi-dimensional measures to curb terrorism

ISLAMABAD

Members of the National Assembly on Wednesday called for incorporating multi-pronged measures in the National Security Policy to curb terrorism.
The lawmakers touched upon a number of areas and recommended to focus the issues like deterrence and safety of the population, dissemination of information and deal with other issues inter-linked with terrorism like syllabi of the seminaries and funding.
Speaking on the motion in the House, PTI lawmaker Dr Shireen Mazari proposed to undertake three major steps based on disengaging, isolating and exterminating the terrorists.
“Let us first focus on those, who can be disengaged from extremists; then isolate those, who desire to wage a war; and then exterminate such miscreants.” She advocated disengagement from the US-led war on terror and also to abandon the terminology “war on terror”. She proposed to deal with potential supporters of extremists, secure the population and convince the “fence sitters” to join the state.
“We need to convince them and win over to weaken the extremists.”
Mazari also recommended to effectively disseminating information to media to nullify the impact of the “propaganda of the militants,” and review the syllabi of the seminaries.
She urges the government to act cautiously in taking punitive measures because such steps sometimes become counterproductive.
Tahir Iqbal recommended to engage the youth so they were not misguided by terrorists through “propaganda of Islamisation and enforcement of their own type of sharia”.
He recommended measures like “deterrence” to safeguard the population and “isolate the hardliners”, who did not want to hold dialogue with the government and refused to obey the constitution.
He said terrorists were engaged in psychological and strategic warfare with the government, therefore, it was needed to evolve a “counter subversion system” to deal with their moves. “We also need to educate our youth to stop them from following their ideology.”
He said the role of media was very important to educate those innocent people, who were easily persuaded by militants in the name of religion.
MQM legislator Salman Baloch criticised the banned terrorist outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) for conducting subversive activities in the country. He urged politicians to do away with petty politics and work for the betterment of the country.
The National Internal Security Policy must be implemented forthwith as the Taliban continue their killing spree across the country.
PML-N lawmaker Daniyal Aziz criticised the country’s police system and urged drastic reforms. He flayed the Islamabad Capital Administration (ICT) for their failure to check gory incident in district courts last day.
JI legislator Tariqullah lauded the National Internal Security Policy draft and said it was a comprehensive policy. He wondered that over 600,000 intelligence officials were working in the country’s but no place was safe from terrorists.
He demanded local body elections in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and a development package for the areas to ensure their uplift.
PkMAP lawmaker Mehmood Khan Achakzai said Pakistan was at crossroads and it should be put on right track with collective wisdom. He demanded a joint sitting of parliament to discuss the National Internal Security Policy. A resolution should be passed in the joint sitting that the constitution was supreme and all parties must adhere to the resolution. The country must be put on right track with collective wisdom. Supremacy of constitution and parliament must be ensured for ensuring peace and putting the country on right track, he added. He said people only demand an effective justice system in the country.
Without taking Afghanistan on board the operation against terrorists could not succeed, he said. Achakzai said military operation should be the last resort as it brings devastation.

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