Counter-terrorism plan: Deadlock as religious, secular parties stick to their guns

JUI-F, JI insist on delinking terror from faith; PPP, others object to broadening military courts’ scope


Azam Khan January 25, 2015
JUI-F, JI insist on delinking terror from faith; PPP, others object to broadening military courts’ scope. STOCK IMAGE

ISLAMABAD: A deadlock persists on a mechanism for the implementation of a new national plan to counter terrorism and extremism as the federal government struggles to evolve a consensus on required changes in the country’s criminal justice system.

The 20-point National Action Plan was worked out at two multiparty conferences that followed the December 16 massacre of schoolchildren at the Army Public School in Peshawar. Subsequently, parliament approved constitutional changes in order to set up military courts for speedy trial of terror suspects.

Sources in the interior ministry told The Express Tribune that some parliamentary parties have concerns over certain points of the NAP, including functioning and scope of the military courts, and action against militant groups, banned outfits, seminaries and hate literature.

Law Secretary Sardar Raza Khan confirmed a practical mechanism could not be worked out due to a deadlock. Key politico-religious parties – Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam – Fazl and Jamaat-e-Islami – insist on ‘delinking terrorism from religion’, but secular parties are unwilling to broaden the scope of the military courts.

Sources said Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was trying to convince JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and JI Ameer Sirajul Haq on proposed legislation in return for a ‘package deal’ with certain guarantees and assurances. He is said to have assured the two leaders that the government would take into account the apprehensions of religious groups while implementing the NAP.

The Pakistan Peoples Party, Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Awami National Party want action against all militant groups, including those involved in the disputed Himalayan state of Kashmir. Additionally, these parties do not favour establishment of military courts in Gilgit Baltistan (G-B).

PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar said his party had supported the 21st constitutional amendment for a specific purpose but “we should not let militarisation of the country’s criminal justice system”.

Senator Babar told The Express Tribune the PPP wants the military courts to prosecute only those “who are fighting with us in the name of religion or sect and any role [of military courts] beyond this will not be acceptable to us.”

JI lawmaker Sahibzada Tariqullah confirmed that Chaudhry Nisar has offered them a ‘package deal’. “Eighty per cent issues have been settled and the remaining 20% would be resolved soon,” he told The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 26th, 2015.

 

COMMENTS (4)

Masood Khan | 9 years ago | Reply

How can you win JI & JUI on this issue -- they are part of the problem, how can they agree to action against themselves. Have we forgotten SMH' outburst against Pak soldiers sacrificing their lives and his praises for Hakeem Ullah Mehsud. I am afraid PMLN govt is in collusion with JI & JUI to cause this confusion and gain time to dilute the whole issue. We are the only people on this planet who will never learn, what come by.

S.R.H. Hashmi | 9 years ago | Reply

Being old enough, I have seen Pakistan right from the beginning. So I can say from personal experience that even during the early days of Pakistan, people took their religion seriously, but there were not so many divisions. There were just two broad categories: Shias and Sunnis, with not much problem even between them. The various divisions, sometimes signified by the colour and shapes of turbans and caps, and very many of them at each others' throats, were a much later creation. And obviously those who, acting in the name of religion and posing as religious scholars, created such divisions, have not really done much service either to the religion or to Pakistan and Pakistanis. In fact such religious practitioners, with a fair number of quacks among them, are part of the problem of intolerance, militancy and terrorism that we are now facing, and which has become an existential threat for us. However, even now, this extremism and fanaticism is practised by a small minority among us, though a very trouble-some minority. This trend is clearly visible in the scarce presence of politico-religious parties in our assemblies.

By far the greatest responsibility for our present troubles lies with Gen. Ziaul Haq who unnecessarily involved Pakistan in American war with Soviet Russia, basically to prolong his rule. And to prepare for that war, he used religious leaders who, with Saudi funding established a large chain of Madrassas to churn out Jihadies, and thus ended up promoting militancy in Pakistan. And the later rulers who let the menace grow and develop, and did nothing to contain it, also do not stand blameless.

And now the government seems to be trying to placate the same elements who caused us this problem.

Am I to understand that Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan is trying to win over the allies of the groups which hold direct responsibility for our misfortune and is offering them as an incentive a package, eighty percent of which has already been agreed, with just 20 percent remaining to be resolved? I hope he does not go too far on his appeasement mission, and dilutes the anti-terror policy so much as to make it toothless, and totally incapable of tackling the problem that it is meant to solve.

The fact that 21st Amendment to the Constitution has been passed clearly means that the government has the required majority's support, which is more than enough. And the people who try to please just about every body usually end up annoying them all, and worse still, utterly fail in achieving the objective for which the overall plan was devised in the first place.

Karachi

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