ISLAMABAD:
Authorities in Punjab have asked Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Governor Masood Kausar to set his own house in order before levelling allegations against Punjab for having close contacts with Punjabi Taliban.
Punjab government spokesperson Senator Pervez Rashid invited the attention of the K-P governor over the statements recently made by the official witnesses in court during the trial of the Mumbai attacks case in Adiala.
The prosecution witnesses, officials from police and intelligence agency, told the court that the attackers had been trained at training camps in Karachi, Battal in Mansehra in K-P and Muzaffarabad by a militant outfit.
Pervez, while reacting to the governor’s accusations said that in view of the statements by the witnesses court Kausar should take action against those who maintain training camps in his province.
A senior police official in Lahore decried Kausar’s statement against the Punjab government as highly irresponsible. ‘’The governor must consider national interest before making such statements merely to score points against his political foes in the Punjab government. The governor should also keep in mind as to what message he had sent to the people in Washington, London and Delhi while accusing the provincial government for politically biased allegations” the official said. “The governor should know that he is admitting that Pakistan is providing help to the Punjabi Taliban,” he remarked.
Kausar had repeatedly claimed that there were elements in Punjab that were maintaining contacts with the Punjabi Taliban. Demanding early action against Punjabi Taliban by the Punjab government, he said that the provincial government had never denied contacts with banned outfits and the time had come that it went against the extremists in Punjab.
Making more serious allegations against the government of Punjab, the governor had claimed that if extremists had not existed in Punjab, the term Punjabi Taliban would not have been coined. Punjabi Taliban, he said, are a reality, had it not been so people would have coined used other epithets before their name.
A senior official from the governor’s office revealed that the allegations against the Punjab government were prompted by an intelligence report which disclosed that the government of Punjab was not taking the required steps to crush the Punjabi Taliban.
Despite repeated allegations by Kausar against the government of Punjab, the K-P government did not consider it essential to take up the matter with the government in Lahore.
“The federal and all provincial governments are aware of those reports,” was the official’s reply when he was asked by The Express Tribune as to why the governor had not taken up the issue with the federal government.
An aide at the K-P governor’s office said that such information forms part of intelligence and situation reports of the specialised agencies in army and civil setups. “Such reports are shared by these organisations with the provincial governments, governors and federal offices including the ministry of interior. Therefore, the reports received here in Peshawar would certainly have been shared with the other provinces.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 21st, 2012.
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