Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah has said that the bombing of Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park Lahore is not an intelligence failure but said the law-enforcement agencies need to improve coordination and work on their capacity building to avoid such terrorist attacks in future.
He was talking to the Pakistan Today Editor Arif Nizami during his Channel 24 talkshow DNA Wednesday night.
He said the prime minister had chaired a high level meeting after the attack in Lahore and taken several important decisions. However, he said the decisions could not be shared with media at this stage. He said that the prime minister has ordered a stern action to arrest the facilitator of the Lahore massacre which left 70 people, a lot of them Christians, on the occasion of Easter.
Sana said more than 5,000 people have been arrested by the law enforcement agencies since the attack in Lahore. He said that 56 operations were carried out by the Punjab Police while 88 by the Rangers to arrest the terrorists in the aftermath of the Lahore attack.
“Army is already in Punjab and so are the Rangers. They are deployed during by-elections and on the eve of Muharram to maintain law and order,” he said while commenting on whether the Army has finally entered the province.
He reiterated that the civil and military leaderships are on the same page in fighting terrorism in the country and that it’s only some conspiracy theorists who are trying to give the impression that there’s a rift between the army and the civilian government. He categorically ruled out the notion that the Punjab government was reluctant to launch the crackdown against terrorists in its territory.
“My critics were saying that I was backing the notorious Malik Ishaq of Lashkar-e-Jhanhvi but time has proved them wrong as Ishaq was killed in a police encounter in Punjab,” he said.
Sanaullah said he had presented himself before the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) which was formed to probe Model Town killings but not a single allegation was proven against him.
“The case is now in the courts and I will be exonerated as I was not involved in any of it.”