President Mamnoon Hussain on Friday said after defeating terrorism in the battlefield, there was a need to crush the terrorist mindset as well.
Addressing the graduates of National Security and War Course here at National Defence University (NDU), the president said terrorism and extremism could be eliminated by promoting education.
Following the success of Operation Zarb-e- Azb, other national narratives are needed to be determined to ensure peace in the country, he said.
He said civil and military officials, media and educationists could contribute their input in devising a national narrative to eliminate terrorism. He said terrorists had exploited Islam to spread hatred and anarchy among disadvantaged and less educated people.
“It is a matter of satisfaction that present leadership of Pakistan is working honestly to ensure national and regional security and people are supporting the government in this historic struggle,” he said.
He said there was a paradigm shift in the concept and understanding of national security in state-centric and societal levels.
He said deprivation from essentials of life creates a sense of loss in the people which weakens the state and its institutions. “If institutions and their officials discharge their responsibilities in a spirit of faithfulness to the state, then I believe it would be easy to meet this challenge,” he said.
He lauded the contributions of the NDU in refining and defining national security concepts of the participants and enabling civilian policymakers to acquire a better understanding of the issues concerning national security.
Congratulating the graduates, the president said they were now equipped with requisite skills to handle intricate and complex professional matters concerning national security.
President NDU Lt Gen (r) Rizwan Akhtar in his speech said that the NDU’s training courses were compatible with the changing global scenarios.
Twenty-seven officers of civil bureaucracy belonging to the police, secretariat audit and accounts, inland revenue and Pakistan administrative services attended the course.
