Pakistan Faces New Wave Of Terrorism: Senator Awan

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Oct, 2022 ) :Minister of State for Law and Justice Senator Shahadat Awan on Friday said Pakistan was currently facing a new wave of terrorism and a comparative rise in terrorism incidents was witnessed across the country.

Responding to the question, raised by Senator Seemee Ezdi, he said most of the incidents were reported in border adjacent areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

He said 514 incidents were happened countrywide from January to July 2022, adding according to the statistics, there were 307 incidents occurred in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while 189 in Balochistan, 12 in Sindh, 3 in Islamabad Capital Territory and 3 in Punjab.

Highlighting reasons for increase in attacks, he said significant presence of transnational terrorist organizations networks and local terrorist organizations safe havens in Afghanistan was one of the main factor of the sad incidents.

He said terrorist organizations having liberty of action across the western border ware trying to enhance their area of activities/outreach.

After the United States withdrawal, terrorist organizations acquired abandoned sophisticated weapons/equipment, he said adding possession of long-range weapons with night vision devices enhanced lethality and night operational capability.

He said growing nexus was amongst various terrorist organizations at lower tier for undertaking joint activities.

He said terrorist organizations were reorganizing and regrouping to gain/consolidate foothold in areas adjacent to border for further ingress in major cities.

He further elaborated the measures taken by the government to overcome these burgeoning incidents across the country.

He said persistent intelligence based operations were undertaken to neutralize terrorist organizations and re-appraisal of National Action Plan to counter the terrorism.

He said the government was trying effective border management and completion of border fencing in an earlier time frame.

He said peace talks with Tahreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and engagement of disgruntled Baloch tribesmen for reconciliation were underway.

He said the establishment of Safe City Projects in vulnerable districts were being considered and fast tracked besides strengthening of Provincial Counter Terrorism Departments (CTDs).

He said the government was making additional focus to counter terror financing and choking funding sources/channels of terrorist organizations (TOs).

He said the government was trying its best for effective governance and socio-economic development to gain popular public support in Newly Merged Districts (NMDs) and Balochistan.

He said the government was doing regular security audits and providing foolproof security of national/religious leaders and events.

He said the government reviewed of existing laws and capacity building of all departments concerned to monitor use of cyber space and social media networks by the terrorist organizations.

He said the reappraisal/implementation was being made in letter and spirit of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for protection of foreigners especially Chinese nationals/China Pakistan Economic Corridor projects.

He said approval and effective implementation of Counter Violent Extremism (CVE) Policy was in progress too.