Terrorists attack at D.I. Khan

A police mobile was ambushed by unidentified gunmen in Mahrash area of Dera Ismael Khan killing four policemen and wounding the Station House officer. A passerby was also wounded in the attack. The attackers fled from the crime scene and local police launched a search operation for the arrest of suspects. Like Baluchistan Khyber Pukhtunkhwa is a front line province in which police officials and personnel of security agencies are often targeted by the terrorists. But the federal government has not seriously considered working out a comprehensive national security policy in consultation with provincial governments.

After the Army Public School attack in December, 2014 a National Action Plan was prepared and approved but the previous PML-N government put it on the back burner. The present government has also not made its implementation in letter and spirit a priority. Curriculum reforms, seminaries reforms and reforming the criminal justice system have been abandoned. Sleeper cells of terrorist outfits have not completely been cleared in cities and the outskirts. There is a visible policy of masterly inactivity in this regard. The issue of choking the sources of funding to these outfits needs to be seriously addressed.

Counterterrorism watchdog, National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) is yet to be made fully functional. The budget allocated for this most important organization for the current fiscal year is a peanut amount of Rs. 170 million while it had demanded an allocation of Rs. 1.046 billion. The employees related expenses in the current year schedule of expenditure stand at Rs.109 million. How it can effectively perform its mandated job with the balance amount of Rs.61 million. It appears that the proposal about the formation of Joint Intelligence Directorate under the umbrella of NACTA has been dropped.

The terrorist attacks are usually planned on the Afghan soil and the terrorists who sneaked into Pakistan easily get morphed with Afghan Refugees. A larger number of Afghan nationals are still imams in the local mosques. The terrorists find local handlers and facilitators to strike their chosen targets. In principle a tentative plan of the repatriation of the registered and unregistered Afghan nationals should have been in place. Last year, voluntary repatriation of Afghan Refugees took place at a snail pace with hardly five to six families returned to Afghanistan from Khyber Pukhtunkhwa per day. From Baluchistan two-to-three families took the return journey. A national security plan needs to be drafted and approved from the parliament and implemented on priority basis.