Tackling terrorism

The fact that most of the arrestThe country’s largest province is performing better than all other provinces

The interior ministry has informed the Senate of Pakistan that more than 16,022 people have been arrested from all over the country between 2013 and 2017 on terrorism charges, and out of them 2,525 have been awarded punishment. The fact that most of the arrests — i.e. 10,993 — have been made in Punjab shows that the country’s largest province is performing better than all other provinces and regions. The figures of arrests at other places are: 2,728 in Sindh, 1,967 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 147 in Balochistan, 126 in Gilgit-Baltistan and 61 in the federal capital. However, details of arrests from Fata and Azad Kashmir were not available. In case of convictions also, Punjab stands ahead of all at 1,970, out of a total of 2,525 punished. Besides, convictions from Sindh stand at 255, K-P 234, Balochistan 54, Gilgit-Baltistan 10 and the federal capital 10. Of those convicted, 376 were awarded death sentence.

The reported interior ministry figures are related to four years between 2013 and 2017, but they do not offer any breakup of the arrests and convictions before and after the formulation of the 20-point National Action Plan (NAP) in 2015 in the wake of the December 2014 Army Public School massacre. While a statistical comparison of pre- and post-NAP situation is not available at hand, there is a general feeling of terrorist incidents having abated in the country. However, the bloody build-up to the July 25 general elections — during which more than 150 people lost their lives to terrorist attacks, mainly in K-P — shows that terrorists can still strike at will, wherever and whenever they want. This, coupled with Pakistan’s greylisting by the FATF, speaks of the need to turn the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta), the primary institution overseeing NAP, as a proactive entity. 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 31^st, 2018.

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