Security challenges: Nawaz invites top politicians on July 12

The meeting will evolve a strategy to curb militancy.

ISLAMABAD:

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has convened a meeting of the heads of all political parties represented in parliament on July 12. The meeting will evolve a national strategy to curb militancy and to address the law and order and security situation.

The meeting comes on the back of Nawaz’s visit to Quetta where he announced that his administration would try to tackle the growing security challenges through a series of meetings with stakeholders.

Sources told The Express Tribune that the prime minister has instructed the military leadership to come up with a comprehensive strategy to curb the menace of terrorism in Balochistan.

Sources added that the prime minister also ordered to define the role of security and intelligence agencies whose performance has been called into question due to the volatile security situation in the country.



Premier Nawaz on Tuesday instructed all intelligence agencies to pool their resources and protect the Hazara Town, a Shia neighbourhood of Quetta, from gun and bomb attacks. He directed all intelligence agencies, including Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB), to treat the security of Hazara Town as a ‘test case’.

The premier also instructed the agencies to present evidence against the countries allegedly involved in designing Balochistan turmoil. According to an official source, the prime minister would share the evidence with the heads of political parties to get their point of view.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2013.