Counter-terrorism strategies: Opposition leader suggests taking all parties on board

SUKKUR:

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government should take other parties in confidence and form a strategy to cope with terrorism in the country, said Khursheed Shah on Monday.

The leader of opposition in the National Assembly was speaking to the media after offering his condolences to the Shia Ulema Council in the aftermath of the Jacobabad blast that claimed 26 lives on Muharram 9. He was accompanied by Pakistan Peoples Party MNA Aijaz Jakhrani and provincial minister Mumtaz Jakhrani.

“Terrorism is a grave issue in the country,” said Shah. Even though the military operations in Swat, Waziristan and FATA have remained fruitful, the government has to take corrective measures to curb terrorism in other parts of the country, he said, adding that all political parties were taken on board to discuss such issues during the tenure of the Pakistan Peoples Party.

Nurseries of terrorism are cropping up in Southern Punjab and, besides affecting other parts of Pakistan, they have started affected parts of upper Sindh, he pointed out. Shah claimed that the Sindh government is doing its best to curb terrorism in the province but he blamed the Indian spy agency, RAW, of fuelling extremist sentiments among various sects and creating unrest in the country.

He criticised the Modi-led government in India and insisted that the neighbouring country wants to destabilise Pakistan and is doing so by using RAW as a tool.

Shah admitted that there are safe havens of terrorists in Kashmore, Jacobabad, Shikarpur and Sukkur districts and the Sindh government is keeping an eye on them. The intelligence network needs to be widened, he said.

Referring to the demand made by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Arif Alvi for Sindh home minister to step down, Shah said the Sindh government will only remove the home minister once the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government removes one of its own ministers over terrorism.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2015.