Year 2010 for Punjab: Police manages to track only 20% of terrorism cases

LAHORE: Despite heavy capacity-building investment, the Punjab police has managed to track under 20 per cent of all terrorism incidents that occurred in the province in 2010.

Data obtained by The Express Tribune shows that Punjab suffered 32 attacks last year, which killed 257 people, including 24 policemen, while 812 people sustained injuries, 66 of them policemen. Of these, only six incidents have been traced.

According to official documents, the police has been able to track the attacks at a former office of the Special Intelligence Agency (SIA) in Model Town, Lahore, and RA Bazaar in Lahore Cantonment.

Among other attacks where leads were followed were the May attacks on two worship places of the Ahmadiyya community in Lahore. Police managed to arrest two of the attackers.

In other areas of Punjab, Mosque al Qamar was attacked in Bahawalpur in September. Three of the arrested accused have confessed to the attack as well as carrying out other attacks in Mian Channu, Khanewal.

According to the report, as many as 66 terrorists were arrested by Punjab police. Also, as many as 2,151 people were placed in the fourth schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) due to suspicion of direct or indirect involvement in terrorist activities. The police is also monitoring activities of 2,360 Afghan trained boys and 461 people who have returned from Afghan prisons.

The police also managed to present some terror suspects in anti-terrorism courts. As many as nine people, arrested in four cases, were convicted by the courts. Six of them were sentenced to death while the remaining three were imprisoned for life, the report said.

Meanwhile, as many as 29 cases were registered against activists of proscribed outfits on charges of collecting charity despite being banned by both the federal and provincial governments and eight were registered on charges of distributing hate material.

The report said that a special campaign was launched against Afghan citizens who were residing illegally in the province. As many as 81,424 Afghans were screened, 1,591 were arrested and 517 cases were filed against them.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2011.