Quetta carnage: PTI files adjournment motion in NA over SC report

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Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Monday (today) filed an adjournment motion in the National Assembly (NA) in favour of a discussion on Justice Qazi Isa’s commission report on the Quetta carnage.

The motion was submitted by PTI MNAs Shireen Mazari, Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Munaza Hasan.

It said that business of the day should be adjourned “to discuss an issue of grave importance” arising out of Justice Qazi Isa’s Inquiry Report on the Quetta carnage.

The one-man commission report released by the Supreme Court on December 16 pointed out the ‘monumental failure’ of the interior ministry to combat terrorism.

“The report has raised serious issues relating to the non-implementation of National Action Plan (NAP) against terrorism,” it said. “The report directly implicated the interior ministry in this failure,” it added.

The adjournment motion went on to add that “the report raised the issue of the interior minister inviting and holding meetings with the leaders of banned militant organisations.” It further said, “the report exposed serious shortcomings in the government and state infrastructure, which have hindered the fight against terrorism.”

“As such it is a strong indictment of the government’s anti-terrorism policy,” it maintained.

Read more: Nisar has committed contempt of court: PTI

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf's Adjournment motion. — Shireen Mazari's Twitter

-Key recommendations of Quetta inquiry report-

• The National Action Plan should be made into a proper plan, with clear goals, a comprehensive monitoring mechanism, and periodic reviewing.

• Nacta (National Counter Terrorism Authority) must be activated. It must do what the Nacta Act mandates.

• The public space needs to be reclaimed to counteract the virulent propaganda of the terrorists. The laws and Constitution need to be reestablished and the state must re-exert itself.

• The Anti-Terrorism Act needs to be enforced, and terrorists/terrorist organisations must be proscribed without delay.

• The federal and Balochistan governments must develop and maintain a databank with information or perpetrators/suspects of heinous crimes and terrorists organisations.

• Forensic laboratories should be not under the jurisdiction of the police, but of scientists. The results/tests should be uploaded in a central databank and easily accessed from any province.

• All crime scenes should be professionally secured, forensically examined and extensively photographed as soon as possible.

• Protocols or standard operating procedures should be developed with the help of experts.

• The shortcomings of the hospital, government of Balochistan and police need to be addressed and removed.

• All educational institutions, including madaris, need to be registered.

• Entry into and departure from Pakistan needs to be properly monitored; all persons must have the requisite documentation.

• The customs authorities should ensure that contraband is not brought into the country.

• If the media broadcasts and propagates the views of terrorists, then those doing so must be prosecuted in accordance with the law.

• The amount of compensation for the legal heirs of the deceased and for the injured should be expeditiously distributed.

Earlier, on Saturday, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar said that he had decided to resign over allegations of his political rivals following Supreme Court’s report on Quetta hospital carnage.

Nisar also said the report was one-sided and was released without including the interior ministry’s narrative, saying “personal attacks were also hurled at me for no reason.”

On December 16, the PPP also submitted an adjournment motion against Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in the National Assembly Secretariat, claiming that the interior minister was incapable of playing a role in combating terrorism.

According to the report, based on investigations into the Quetta incident in which 70 people, most of them lawyers, were killed, Nisar ‘displayed little sense of ministerial responsibility’ and that there was a continued delay on part of his ministry to take steps against militant groups and proscribed organisations.

Read more: Hang in there, buddy: PM tells Ch Nisar