Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan visited the terror-hit Army Public School and College on Monday, following which he called on the federal government to equip Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police and security agencies with adequate resources to fight terrorism.
The PTI chairman toured the Army Public School, where 148 people, mostly school children, were killed on Dec 16 following an attack by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists. He also met with the victims’ families to offer condolences.
Speaking in a press conference after visiting the school, Imran Khan said that tight monitoring of the Pak-Afghan border is crucial to combat terrorism.
“Waging a war [against militancy] is difficult but not impossible,” the PTI chairman said. “We need to unite to fight the menace of terrorism,” he added.
Further, Imran said that the police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is not fully equipped to fight terrorism. “The police force isn’t trained to fight terrorism and they need to be provided with intelligence by the federal government,” he said.
Imran also said that Frontier Corps (FC) should be deployed back to the tribal areas because the force’s primary responsibility was to secure the tribal areas.
“Around 5,000 police personnel should be recruited from the tribal areas and be deployed in KP,” Imran Khan said.
The army is currently engaged in operations, Zarb-e-Azb and Khyber-I, against militants in North Waziristan and Khyber Agency.
Addressing the issue of internally displaced people in KP, Imran Khan asked the federal government to provide financial assistance to the provincial government to provide the IDPs with facilities like food, shelter and education.
Moreover, he also said that illegal refugees from Afghanistan should be sent back.
He also stressed that when schools reopen after winter break, a security plan should be formed beforehand and a person within the school should be given the duty of reporting any suspicious activity through a special mobile phone “with the hit of just one button”.