- Interior minister lashes out at critics of NAP, says closing down educational institutions is exactly what terrorists want Pakistanis to do
- Nisar lashes out at PPP, ‘confirms’ PTI’s allegation of collusion between PML-N and PPP
- Rubbishes criticism on Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Aziz; says his statement in Senate was misquoted
- Says NAP is not controlled by military; Operation Zarb-e-Azb started before NAP and is not part of action plan
Equipped with statistics on terror incidents that took place during the past year across the country, Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan hit out at critics of the National Action Plan (NAP) on Thursday saying those criticising the policy “had never read NAP”.
During a press conference in the federal capital, Nisar boasted about the gains made through NAP and claimed that terror incidents and casualties have been the lowest in 9 years.
In an apparent remark to growing criticism of NAP in the wake of the recent Charsadda University attack, he said that Pakistan is militarily winning the war on militancy but “we are losing the psychological war against terrorism”.
“Whenever there is an attack, a storm begins. We behave exactly how our enemies want by creating an atmosphere of fear. People criticise the government saying no progress has been made.”
Nisar also expressed his reservations about the closing of schools in Punjab.
“Security can be improved while schools are still on,” he said.
“We should give a message of strength and unity and fight against the atmosphere of fear and terror.”
“The terrorists are desperate so they are attacking the softest targets. There are hundreds of thousands of schools in Pakistan. Securing each school is a difficult job, but it must be done.”
The minister said he had told Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) Minister Tariq Fazal Chaudhry that schools should not be closed.
“I will request Punjab and other provinces to not shut down schools,” he said.
“If we close all our educational institutions, hospitals, streets, neighbourhoods and hide ourselves in our houses; this is what the terrorists want.”
The minister rubbished criticism that NAP is controlled by the military saying, “Operation Zarb-e-Azb started before NAP. It is not a part of NAP.”
“One or two things [in the NAP] are informed by the Ministry of Defence and the army. Everything else is from the civilian government.”
Nisar said he would brief the media managements next week on the gains of NAP.
“Networks of terrorism have been broken. The terrorists are on the run so they hit the softest targets. Instead of seven-eight attacks every day, they hit one target. They create so much terror that everyone roams fearfully,” he said.
“The government policy is very clear — there are no good or bad militants.”
PTI WAS RIGHT ABOUT MUK-MUKA:
Nisar also hit out at the opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and referring to ex-president Asif Ali Zardari’s notorious ‘eenth-se-eenth’ outburst against the military establishment, said, “A few political elements have problems elsewhere but they vent out their frustration on NAP.”
“Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has been levelling allegations of ‘muk-muka’ (collusion) between the PML-N and PPP. I can confirm it (muk-muka).”
“How the opposition leader used his position to get benefits from the government is a separate story altogether,” Nisar went on to say.
Following the recent attack on the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda which had claimed 21 lives, Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Shah had raised eyebrows over NAP’s implementation and held the interior minister responsible for the attack.
Shah had accused the federal government of making no significant progress on NAP and said only 60 out of 3,000 major terrorism cases had been sent to military courts.
In reference to the intelligence that Charsadda terror attack was being controlled from a location in Afghanistan through Afghan cellphone, Nisar said although Afghan SIMs could no longer work on roaming in Pakistan, there were some places in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas where their towers can broadcast signals.
“We took this matter up with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and will take this matter up with the Afghan government too,” he maintained.
Nisar, who came under fire last week for ‘misleading’ the House on Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Aziz, said, “In my absence, there were many misstatements regarding Maulana Abdul Aziz in the Senate. People who want to score political points only want to create confusion.”
The minister said he will “request the Senate chairman to broadcast my response and criticism [regarding Abdul Aziz] live.”
“What do I have to hide?” he said, vowing he will put everything before the Senate regarding Abdul Aziz.
“I can make a mistake unintentionally but I should not be called a liar,” he said.
The interior ministry came under immense pressure to take action against Abdul Aziz after four key legal documents, asserting that the cleric was an absconder, were presented before the Upper House by PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar last week.
Babar, who also sought the chair’s permission to move a privilege motion against Interior Minister Nisar for misleading the House, said Nisar incorrectly stated in Senate that the government did not move against Aziz because of a lack of evidence in the case lodged against him.
Nisar also said he had grievances against certain sections of the media, which criticised his absence, which was due to his poor health.
“My health worsened as I was working for two days while I was ill,” he said, and added that anyone could fall ill.
He also mentioned the cartoons published by some media outlets, which depicted him carrying a burden of lies.
Extremist have an edge over us. They are using religion as weapon and we loosing religion in the name of Liberalism. In fact we when I say we I mean the whole nation inclusive the elite in power must use our relgion agains the extremism. Islam is actually the finest religion on the earth. Look at the statement of the Quad-E-Azam. You are free to to Mosque, church, Gurdwara or Mandar, the state has nothing to do with it. So liberal is Islam that gives rights to every citizen to perform it's religious duties but at the same time the state must fulfil it's duties to give justice, social welfare , education ad health. Here what we are loosing.
Islam is "Deen-E-Muhammad(SA) not a Sunni, Whabi or Shia or what so ever. We must gather all our material written by the former late scholars and make it our asset to solve the modern problems and spread it to the people at gross root level. I do believe that the extremism shall die automatically when the people see the result giving them maximum facilities promised by the Muslim state.
Above all the state must have the strict laws to deal with and establish it's writ.We are loosing because we are not the finest weapon in the earth and that is "ISLAM ISLAM and only Islam"
The Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who shudders at the suggestion of taking action against Maulana Abdul Aziz and the likes, and offers various excuses for not doing the needful, is hardly the one qualified to suggest to people not to fear the terrorist threats, despite apparent capacity of the terrorists to strike at will.
And Peoples Party leaders and other are not criticizing Nation Action Plan but are criticizing government’s failure to implement the civilian side of the National Action Plan, which was primarily Chaudhry Nisar’s responsibility.
The military has done a satisfactory job by uprooting the deeply entrenched terrorists in the tribal areas, killing hundreds of them and forcing the rest to flee across the border to Afghanistan or relocate to different cities in Pakistan. However, they still manage to launch attacks from across the border or even from within the country.
And while our military can not cross the border and attack them in their safe havens, even their attacks are made possible only with local collaboration, meaning their facilitators, including banned outfits which often join hands with them to launch attacks. And yet no serious action has been taken against these banned outfits, for which Chaudhry Nisar bears the major blame.
Chaudhry Nisar basically specializes in making ‘bold’ statements, producing wonderful statistics and announcing future plans, but is almost a total failure when it comes to actual performance. One exception is of course Karachi where, joining hands with Sindh Rangers, he is chasing Peoples Party, MQM and Dr. Asim Hussain – who are not offering physical resistance – to the neglect of far more serious problems elsewhere in the country. And surprisingly, no one among the top leadership seems to be too concerned about it, and in fact seem to be enjoying the show.
Karachi
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