Ahsan smells rat in MPAs resignations

Interior minister says resignations are collected to sabotage Senate election

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal on Friday said resignations of lawmakers were being collected to sabotage the next Senate elections scheduled for March.

“Smooth holding of the Senate elections in March has become very uncertain,” Ahsan said while referring to the recent no-confidence move of some provincial lawmakers against Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Sanaullah Zehri.

Speaking in the Senate Standing Committee on Interior and later talking to the media, the interior minister said an effort was underway to dissolve the assemblies to sabotage the election of the upper house of parliament.



He said that some elements harboured nefarious designs against the democratic system. “The ruling PML-N will benefit the most from the Senate elections if they are held in time.”

“If I ask how many people in this committee are sure that the Senate elections would be held in March as mandated by the Constitution [then the majority would say they are not],” the minister said but hastened to add, “Anyone can assess the uncertainty with the answer.”

Iqbal said another sit-in-like situation was being created in the country. “The politics of resignations and sit-ins will weaken the country,” he said.



“A crisis-like situation is being created at a time when the country is facing external challenges,” he said, adding, “Internal instability or chaos can prove to be detrimental to Pakistan.”

“So in a country where you cannot say something with certainty even about the next two months, then how can you face external challenges?” he said.

The minister said there was a need to understand the challenges Pakistan was facing on external fronts and added they demanded a united response.

Meanwhile, Iqbal briefed the committee about the implementation of the National Action Plan. He said that the security situation in the country had improved because of the proper implementation of NAP.



He said the US was accusing Pakistan of harbouring terrorism, but oblivious of the fact that 40 to 60 per cent of land in Afghanistan was not under the control of the Afghan government or coalition forces.

“This land is under the control of the Taliban and other opposition groups,” he said and added, “Such militant groups don’t need Pakistan to carry out terrorist activities.”

On the other side, most of recent terrorist activities in Pakistan had been carried out from across the western border, he added.

“Coalition forces in Afghanistan have completely failed to stop this cross-border terrorism and there are some evidence that Indian spy agency RAW is involved in such activities.”



The interior minister said that the federal government was coordinating with the provinces to implement NAP.

He informed the committee that provinces on the persuasion of the federal government have agreed to coordinate with the centre in establishing a national database of criminals and terrorists.

MQM Senator Muhammad Ali Saif said Pakistan had failed to sell its narrative to the world. Senator Fateh Muhammad Hassani challenged the figure of 3.5 million Afghan refugees provided by the interior minister, saying it was much more than this.

After hearing the senators, Rehman Malik, who chaired the meeting, said that the committee had a consensus that “Afghan refugees should be evicted from the country forcefully”.

National Coordinator National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) Ihsan Ghani, while briefing the committee, said the authority had started working on formulating the National Internal Security Policy (NISP).



The committee also recommended suspending a notification of the interior ministry cancelling all prohibited bore arms licences issued by the federal government.

“We want to take the issue to the Senate for a discussion and the notification should remain suspended till the final recommendation of the house on it,” said the chair.

The committee, on a question earlier raised by Senator Azam Khan Musakhel in the Senate, also recommended that the federal government should lift the ban on the sale and movement of urea in Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and FATA.

The Ministry of Interior opposed the recommendation saying the ban was imposed in view of its use in improvised explosive devices.

The committee also passed a resolution, strongly condemning the US President Donald Trump’s recent threats and accusations against Pakistan.