Crackdown sought to eliminate terrorist outfits

Speaker demands that Lal Masjid cleric be arrested and tried for allegations against him

LAHORE: Members of various civil society organisations and rights activists gathered at the Gulshan-i-Iqbal Park – the site of Sunday’s blast – and held a vigil to honour the memory of those who lost their lives in the attack.

The participants also condemned those responsible for the attack and criticised the government for its failure to crack down on terrorist outfits in the country.  They said the attack suggested that the government’s security and law enforcement agencies had failed to perform their duties.

Rawadari Tehreek chairman Samson Salamat said implementation of the National Action Plan against Terrorism had not been effective.

“Banned outfits continue to operate in the country and keep amassing social support. How can one say that the NAP has been successful?” he asked.

Salamat said it appeared that the government was not serious in tackling hate speech and radical tendencies. “There should be nothing more important than the lives of innocent people. We call upon the government to ensure effective implemention of the NAP,” he said.

Salamat said so far the focus of the NAP had been execution of those charged with terrorism. “Don’t just focus on those already incarcerated. There should be action against those still operating,” he said.

Salaamat said it appeared that the government was giving a free pass to some terrorism suspects like Lal Masjid’s Abdul Aziz. He demanded that the cleric be immediately arrested and put on trial cases registered against him. “The government has ample evidence to prove his [Aziz’s] involvement in acts of terror but the officials concerned refuse to take action against him,” he said.

Komal Pitras, a member of the Rawadari Tehrik, said it was about time the authorities concerned clarified if they were with the public or a handful of clerics exploiting religious beliefs for their vested interests.

Abdullah Malik, the Civil Society Network president, said the gathering had been arranged to condemn both those responsible for the attack and those failing to prevent it.

He said government agencies responsible for emergency preparedness and relief remained underfunded and ineffective.

He said the government had failed to reform curricula taught at education institutes or to counter the extremist narrative through the mass media. He said there was a need for setting up a new institution for tackling terrorism effectively. “A Zarb-i-Azb must also be launched in the Punjab,” he said.

Tahir Malik said that he was a survivor of an act of terrorism and had spent the last six years studying terrorism incidents. He said it was not enough to say that killing a person was like killing all humanity. “We need to be more vocal in condemning terrorist acts,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2016.