Punjab CM allows ‘boots on the ground’ to combat terror

• Rangers operation starts in Punjab province today

In a major breakthrough in trust-building efforts between the military and civilian leadership, Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday agreed to a proposal to allow a major operation against hideouts of proscribed organisations by the paramilitary Rangers in the pockets of the Punjab province from Monday (today), Pakistan Today has learnt reliably.

The chief minister had been resisting several proposals floated by the military leadership for a Rangers operation in the Punjab province.

Although former army chief Raheel Sharif had quietly launched an operation after the suicide attack at the crowded Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in Lahore on Easter Day last year, the Punjab chief minister had virtually compelled him to pull back, strongly resisting the move.

This time around it seems new army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa has adopted a different strategy to move along with an operation clean-up.

MAJOR DECISIONS TAKEN BY PM, COAS

A well-placed source, on the condition of anonymity, told this scribe that the meeting between Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Corps Commander Lahore Lt-Gen Sadiq Ali was actually a follow-up, adding that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had actually already given a go-ahead to the proposed Rangers action in Punjab.

“Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had, at a recent informal meeting, approved Rangers operation in various pockets of the Punjab province against extremists and terrorists on the request of the army chief,” a well-placed source told Pakistan Today.

The source added that the meeting also agreed to restart execution of terrorists and other convicts awaiting verdict in the various jails across Pakistan.

“The meeting also decided that the government would get a nod to reinstate military courts from both the houses of parliament over the next two weeks,” the source said.

The source added that the army would also start fencing the border with Afghan “very soon” and all the necessary measures were being undertaken by relevant quarters.

“The Finance Ministry has been directed to provide requisite funds to the military for fencing the Pak-Afghan border and the process would start very soon. No-one would be allowed to enter Pakistan with evil designs in future,” the source added.

The source said that the army chief had taken a daring step of pounding and destroying at least four centres of the proscribed Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA).

“The four centres linked to JuA were actually destroyed along the border with Afghanistan. Another centre, a bit deeper, will also be engaged once the weather improves. Nothing was done against terrorists hiding in Afghanistan over the past two years. But now we have cleaned that muck too,” the source maintained.

SEHWAN BLAST CULPRITS ARRESTED, BEING INTERROGATED

While the Lahore bombing handlers and facilitators have been rounded up, the handlers and facilitators of the suicide bombing at the shrine of Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan Sharif have also been arrested.

“Details about the shrine bombing perpetrators will be made public after the entire (terrorist) cell is busted,” the source said, adding that things would be very tough for culprits in the coming days.