‘Govt has failed to secure citizens’

Abbasi says terrorism cannot be checked in the same manner as dengue fever

LAHORE: Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) central president Raheeq Abbasi said on Saturday that the government should have introduced legislation in the Provincial Assembly to eradicate terrorism rather than promulgating an ordinance in this regard.

“Terrorism cannot be checked in the same manner as dengue fever,” he said. Abbasi said the party would not allow the government to play the role of a double agent. He said the time was ripe to launch an operation against political parties on the lines of Zarb-i-Azb. Abbasi said the government needed to eliminate terrorists in its ranks instead of felicitating people of Tauqeer Shah’s ilk.  He said the government had   promoted him to grade 22 and posted him as ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for his role in the June 17 Model Town violence. Abbasi said the party would write to the organisation soon to make it cognisant of his role in the violence. He said the PAT would announce a new strategy with regard to the violence soon.

Abbasi said the recent bombing of an imambargah in Rawalpindi was a testament to the government’s inability to secure citizens’ lives and properties. He said the government had taken no initiative to secure the nation. Abbasi said it was due to this that no place of worship was secure in the country.

He said the nation’s children would not have gone to unregistered religious seminaries had the government honoured Article 25 of the Constitution and provided them with free education. Abbasi said the government should strive to register all seminaries across the nation. He said seminaries that failed to register with the government should be closed. Abbasi said the government should vacate office if it cannot provide citizens with security. He said it was necessary to take action against those funding unregistered seminaries. Abbasi said the government would render all counterterrorism efforts futile if it did not take action in this regard. He said it was the duty of the government to secure the lives of all schoolchildren.

Abbasi said the government had not been able to ensure foolproof security arrangements at education institutions due to paucity of funds. He said this was due to its misplaced priorities. Abbasi said the sanctioning of billions of rupees in advance for the Rawalpindi Metro Bus Project and the introduction of a Rs31 billion-tax programme were examples of this.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2015.