Nisar Urges Media To Play Role In Countering Challenge Of

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Feb, 2017 ) : Minister for Interior Ch. Nisar Ali Khan Saturday urged the media to play its role in countering menace of terrorism and to unite the nation by keeping feelings of fear and depression away from them.

Addressing the consultation meeting, along with Minister of State for Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage Marriyum Aurangzeb, he said Presidents and General Secretariats of Pakistan Broadcasting Association, All Pakistan Newspaper Society, Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors have been invited to attend the meeting.

He said the purpose to convene this meeting was to discuss one-point agenda of countering terrorism. He said such a meeting had earlier been convened on January 18, 2015 and it was appealed to media for not giving space to representatives of terrorist organizations.

"I always appreciated the role of media after this meeting two years earlier after which running commentary of representatives of terrorism organizations was completely stopped," he said. Ch. Nisar said that media has great strength and reach towards public and it should play role to motivate people by keeping them united and determined against terrorism.

The entire nation should be kept united and determined by media for ultimate victory in war against terrorism," he added. Minister for Interior said that law and order situation has improved a lot during the last three and half years.

On average, he said six to seven explosions used to occur daily in past but significant decline had been witnessed after the efforts during the last three and half years. Ch. Nisar said it was not a justification for any deteriorating situation but it was the fact that number of explosions did reduce from more than 2000 to 700 per year at present.

Out of these 700 explosions, he said no loss of life was reported in 260 incidents, he added. The minister said that Pakistan has porus border of around 2500 kilometres with Afghanistan and there are multi-faceted issues in this reard.

He said that 30,000 to 40,000 people used to travel earlier without documents through this border, with no policy to stop them or data-bank to check the movement of people. He said effective measures have been taken to counter terrorism and the success story is due to efforts of all law enforcement agencies of Pakistan.

Ministry of Interior, he said, issued security alerts to the provincial governments for several times but he never publicly criticized anyone over failure to check such activity. "I made strict accountability during internal meetings but never publicly criticized any one by using the slot of interior minister," he added.

The minister said " security alert was issued about attack on jail in past but I never tried to take credit of any effort." He said that he deemed it inappropraite to do politics by using the name of war against terrorism.

Ch. Nisar said that he had to face criticism after the incident of Sehwan Sharif whose security was purely subject of provincial government. " Chief Secretary was asked to explain security measures before Sehwan Sharif incident but he had nothing to reply," the minister said adding that security of the shrine was provincial responsibility but even I was criticized on it.