Securing bases: PAF asked to submit financial estimates for enhanced security

PCNS ensures Air Force all additional funds would be made available.

ISLAMABAD:

The Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) has directed the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to tighten security measures at airbases and sensitive facilities across the country while assuring the PAF that all additional funds required to enhance security measures would be made available.

Reiterating the importance of protecting the country’s air assets, the PCNS directed the deputy chief of air staff to urgently compile financial estimates for new security measures and guaranteed that “the committee was ready to send its recommendation for allocation of more funds for the safety of national installations”.

Talking to The Express Tribune, PCNS chairman Senator Raza Rabbani said “people who lost their lives while defending the base were martyrs and the committee members express our heartfelt solidarity with their loved ones”.

Emphasising the need to tighten security at Kamra, which houses the country’s largest aeronautical complex and has been subject to three terror attacks in the past three years, Rabbani added that “Once PAF comes with new financial estimates, PCNS will recommend the issuance of more funds for safety of Kamra base.”

During the in-camera briefing to the PCNS on the Kamra terrorist attack, base commander, Air Commodore Muhammad Azam revealed that the three terrorists involved in the attack hailed from Punjab while one of the three was confirmed to be a resident of Sialkot.

Missing Persons 

While the meeting of the PCNS could not discuss the issue of missing persons on Friday due to scarcity of time, Chairman Rabbani told The Express Tribune that the committee would present its recommendations to parliament on September 13.

In a previous meeting earlier this year, lawmakers raised the issue of missing persons and suggested regulating the workings of intelligence agencies in the country.

A PCNS member revealed that the committee was considering amendments to the law on evidence as well as toughening existing laws to ensure checks on agencies which have been blamed for “enforced disappearances in the country”.

Committee members also hinted that the PCNS would soon finalise recommendations for tracing thousands of people who have gone missing in the country during the past few years.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 8^th, 2012.