- Pakistan suspends all prisoner exchange agreements till formulation of transparent policy
- Nisar says reservations of MQM will be addressed, says nothing personal against party and that indiscriminate operation against terrorists will continue
Amidst deteriorating legal fabric of the country in the wake of ongoing attacks on minorities and hullabaloo over alleged political victimisation of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Interior Ministry has emerged resolute on its stance against terrorism and extremism and has forecasted the formulation of new policies about arms licenses, private security companies and bullet-proof vehicles.
While the government has suspended all prisoner exchange agreements with other countries in a bid to cleanse irregularities being carried out in the process, it has also given a clear message to political parties and seminaries that action against terrorists will continue to be carried out indiscriminately.
Briefing the National Assembly Standing Committee on Interior, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said on Monday that noose is being tightened around terrorists who have now resorted to attacking soft targets, including mosques, churches and schools, in “utter desperation”.
Patting the government’s back for “effective counter-terrorism policy”, which according to him, has yielded positive results, the minister took pride in saying, “We have shrunk the space for them (terrorists) to operate in.”
Urging the nation to stand united to take the war on terror to its “logical conclusion”, the minister condemned the terrorist attacks on churches in Lahore’s Youhanabad area by deeming the attackers to be religion-less.
“Those who committed the act do not belong to any religion. No religion of the world allows such acts,” he claimed.
Speaking about the consequences which the attacks ensued, the federal minister said that those who took the law into their hand in the wake of the incident have also forwarded the agenda of terrorists who want to create “wedge, division, discord and frustration” in the society.
FILLING IN THE SECURITY GAPS:
Moreover, the minister said that new policies about arms licenses, private security companies and bullet-proof vehicles are on the cards.
The minister said that thousands of Rangers personnel were appointed for the security of VVIP’s and added he has taken their services back as the prime purpose of the law enforcement agencies (LEA) personnel is to protect the country.
“Hundreds of security companies are active across the country while such companies are providing services of security personals without their proper training,” he said speaking about the private companies.
He also said that at least 62 corrupt officers of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) have been terminated to make sure that there are efficient security officials in the country.
The federal minister said that the files of sensitive cases were found missing in the Interior Ministry and the record of the ministry is being computerised with the support of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) and the Ministry of Information Technology.
KEEP A CHECK ON THE GATE:
“I also put ban on the officials of the ministry regarding their meetings with foreigners, while the officials of the Interior Ministry will not visit foreign countries in future,” he said.
“Thousands of official passports were issued during previous government’s tenure, which were being used for smuggling while I also cancelled over 2,000 officials’ passports in this regard,” Khan added.
“We will set up 70 new passport offices at district level while the ministry is also working to issue E-passport in near future,” he added.
Nisar said the validity of passports has been increased to 10 years from five years, in order to facilitate the people. He said six machine readable passports offices are operational in different countries and their number will be increased to 56 this year to facilitate the overseas Pakistanis.
NOTHING PERSONAL:
With regards to Karachi operation, he said the government has no intentions to push any political party against the wall. “It was unanimously decided that the operation will be carried out against anyone regardless of his political affiliation,” he added.
He also said reservations of MQM against the operation will also be addressed soon.
“The intelligence agencies are not involved in taping of telephones of common citizens including journalists and politicians. Due to the political differences, I will not put name of any individual on the Exit Control List (ECL),” said the interior minister.
The minister said that the bio-metric verification of 100 million SIMs have been completed, while the roaming facility of Afghan SIMs have been blocked which has helped the security forces to prevent terrorism. He added that the verification of SIMs underway across the country while the process to verify SIM’s will be complete till April 12 under the National Action Plan.
The federal interior minister said that the PML-N government put ban on the issuance of the licenses of prohibited bore while 70,000 licenses of prohibited bore were issued in past tenure.
HOLD ON TO THOSE CONVICTS:
Furthermore, the government has suspended all prisoner exchange agreements with other countries after it discovered that prisoners repatriated from Britain were set free by corrupt officials without completing their sentences.
Authorities have arrested an Interior Ministry official and a police officer after investigating a complaint by British authorities that three convicts, sent to Pakistan in 2010 to serve out their prison terms ranging from 18 to 25 years for drug trafficking and murder, were released within two months.
“We investigated and found out that two prisoners were set free in two months and the third one spent just one day in jail,” the interior minister said, adding that one of the convicts had fled to Dubai while another went to Malaysia and from there to Ecuador, but both had since been arrested and were being repatriated to Pakistan. The third had been arrested in Pakistan.
Nisar said that during their own investigations Pakistani authorities found a fourth prisoner who had similarly evaded a sentence two and half years ago and had since rearrested him.
“We have suspended implementation of all prisoner exchange agreements with various countries till formulation of a transparent policy,” he said.
“We will show the world that Pakistan is a responsible country and we will not spare anybody involved in corruption,” he added.
The officials who were involved in the illegal release of prisoners had been in prison for the past nine months, he added.
