Sindh, G-B yet to geo-tag religious seminaries

ISLAMABAD:

Sindh and Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) have shown no interest in implementing key aspects of the revised anti-terrorism policy adopted after the Peshawar school massacre last December.

Officials associated with the National Action Plan (NAP), which was devised in January 2015 particularly to clamp down on militant outfits, say that the home departments of Sindh and G-B have yet to submit detailed reports on actions taken under the anti-terrorism plan.

A letter written last week by the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) to Sindh and G-B governments states that reports on implementation of key points of NAP, particularly the mapping of madrassas, is still awaited despite repeated requests.

In a recent meeting at the interior ministry, Nacta Director-General Hamid Ali Khan said the two home departments had not responded to Nacta since May 20 despite being sent three requests by his office. Just two days ago, a Supreme Court justice had reportedly termed the NAP ‘inaction plan’, wherein all provinces except Punjab had failed to carry out major recommendations of the revised strategy.

Read: Geo-mapping database: Geographical survey of seminaries on the cards

Officials overseeing progress on NAP claimed that Punjab was leading the other federating units with respect to executing the revised anti-terror policies. The province had completed geo-tagging of madrassas a month ago after screening over 13,000 seminaries throughout the province. Around 4,700 cases have been registered against people on account of hate speeches and more than 4,000 people arrested on the charges.

Meanwhile, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has labelled 150 seminaries ‘sensitive’ after mapping 3,010 madrassas in the terror-hit province.

Even the troubled Balochistan province has completed geo-tagging of seminaries, arrested more than 400 people over hate speeches, the officials said.

Commenting on Sindh, Rustam Shah Mahmood, member of the group of experts who had prepared the 20 points for NAP, observed that lack of political will, bad governance and massive corruption were the main reasons behind this poor performance.

“With multiple causes hurting good governance in the province, Sindh has apparently failed to implement NAP,” he told The Express Tribune. “Poor justice and police systems have marred the performance of the political government there.”

Read: Geo-tagging database: Punjab maps location of 11,000 madrassas

Though Sindh government representatives remained inaccessible despite several attempts, Senator Saeed Ghani, whose Pakistan Peoples Party is in power in the province, claimed that Sindh was executing the anti-terrorism plan efficiently.

As compared to other provinces, the Sindh police were doing a much better job in coping with miscreants across the province, except Karachi where the Rangers were keeping the peace, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 5^th, 2015.