Offered to resign over SC report on Quetta carnage: Nisar

SC report pointed out interior ministry's ‘monumental failure’ to combat terrorism in wake of Quetta carnage

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar on Saturday said that he had decided to resign over allegations of his political rivals following Supreme Court's report on Quetta hospital carnage.

"I went to the prime minister to tell him that I wanted to resign from my position but was told by him that the decision was unacceptable," Nisar said while addressing a press conference in Islamabad.

“The report was one sided and was released without including the interior ministry’s narrative,” Nisar said adding “personal attacks were also hurled at me for no reason.”

“I had decided to respond to the allegations much earlier as media resorted to personality bashing for the last two days, interior minister said adding “this could lead to harm to the national institutions and war against terrorism as the country was facing a sensitive security situation.”



Interior minister said if a judge had the privilege of integrity, everyone else reserved the same right and “I will only remain on my position with integrity.”

I will challenge this report at every forum including the Supreme Court and Parliament and elaborate on the performance of the incumbent and previous regimes [relating to eradication of terrorism].

Interior minister also said that there had been only 774 incidents of terrorism in the country during the current year as opposed to nearly 10,000 such incidents from 2007 until 2013.

Nisar further said that he met with a delegation of Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC) and not Ahl-e-Sunnat-wal-Jamaat (ASWJ) and never allowed the latter hold a public meeting. "I received a letter at Punjab House addressed by the judge's secretary seeking answers to five questions," he said.

None of the questions in the letter related with the carnage in Quetta, Nisar added.

Responding to a question, interior minister said General (retd) Pervez Musharaf was cleared by a trial court and not the interior ministry. He also asked as to why didn’t anyone raise hue and cry when ASWJ's Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi was elected to the assembly.

On Friday, following a judicial commission’s damning report on the August 8 Quetta carnage, opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP) lawmakers demanded that the interior minister be removed from his post.

On December 16, the PPP also submitted an adjournment motion against Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in the National Assembly Secretariat, claiming that the interior minister was incapable of playing a role in combating terrorism.



The one-man commission report released by the Supreme Court on Thursday pointed out the ‘monumental failure’ of the interior ministry to combat terrorism.

Based on investigations into the Quetta incident in which 70 people, most of them lawyers, were killed, the report said Nisar ‘displayed little sense of ministerial responsibility’ and that there was a continued delay on part of his ministry to take steps against militant groups and proscribed organisations.

Shuhada Foundation's statement

Meanwhile, Lal Masjid’s Shuhdaha Foundation, which handles Lal Masjid’s media interactions, came forward to rescue the Interior Minister following the judicial commission's report.

In a statement, spokesperson Hafiz Ahtisham said the commission crossed its limit and entered the executive's domain by commenting on the overall security situation when it was solely required to produce a report on the carnage.

The foundation will move a reference in the Supreme Court Judicial Council against the SC judge Qazi Faez Isa who authored the report, the statement added.