KARACHI – Pakistan’s war on terror is being seriously hampered because of “massive smuggling” of different items – including arms and ammunition – through the border from Afghanistan, claimed Interior Minister Rehman Malik in his address to cadets of the Pakistan Coast Guards at their passing-out ceremony. “The annual turnover of this illicit trade is five billion rupees,” he claimed.
Malik also announced the induction of 83 Baloch youth into the Coast Guards – a step taken on the special directives of Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani. “Rules and regulations were relaxed for this special induction,” Malik said. The interior minister also announced increasing the scope of Coast Guard powers under the Customs and Immigration Act, adding the quota to include women into this service had been increased to five percent without saying how much it was before.
He also announced the creation of four new divisions in the Coast Guards. When asked about the ongoing wave of killings in the city, Malik refused to describe them as targeted killings, claiming instead that it was a term used by the press to describe the manslaughter of political workers by gunmen riding motorcycles.
