Demand for protection: ‘Terrorists kidnapping minors for attacks’

Security is top priority before polls, says information minister

PESHAWAR: Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US should operate unilaterally and eliminate terrorists before the next general elections, said Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain on Wednesday.

Talking to journalists after addressing a seminar on ‘Violence against Women’ at the press club, Hussain said that in the previous elections, terrorists were against electing secular parties and created hurdles in their rise to power. “It’s time that all of us took a stand against such elements,” he said, adding that innocent people are being killed.

Sharing his views about the current security issues in the province, the minister said that militants lack an ideology and have grown weaker with time. They are now ‘renting’ suicide bombers for terrorist attacks. “They would first brainwash people to end their own life, but now they are kidnapping minors for their heinous agenda.”



Alluding to the attack on Malala Yousafzai, the minister said that the incident itself was enough to root out terrorists from the country.

Democracy has flourished in the country after many sacrifices by security forces, government officials and the masses.

Before talking to journalists, the K-P minister, while addressing the seminar, said that gender equality is the need of the hour.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 29^th, 2012.