it was not carried out? Riaz Khan Daudzai PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Friday pushed the federal government to launch an offensive inside Afghan territory if the neighbouring country failed to take action against the perpetrators of the school massacre. The provincial government also asked the federal government to review its foreign policy and remove all the loopholes to ensure internal security that’s the prime object of all external and external policies. This was informed by the Provincial Information Minister Mushtaq Ghani while briefing the media after the cabinet meeting at the Cabinet Room of Civil Secretariat. The provincial cabinet met to review the post-school massacre situation and took imperative decisions in the wake of the heinous incident that took over 141 lives, he sand adding that the cabinet condemned the incident in severest possible words and termed it shameful. The reopening of schools after the ongoing winter vacations has also been linked to the no-objection certificate (NOC) by the district administration, Mushtaq Ghani informed and added that the Health Department was directed to form teams for the psychological counseling of the families of the martyred children and survivours of the unfortunate incident. The provincial minister, while briefing media men about the some ten vital decisions the cabinet took at the special meeting, said that the provincial cabinet urged the government as the links of the Tuesday school attack by Taliban militants led to the Afghan territory through the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), therefore, it (federal government) must intensively take up the matter with Afghan government. “And it should initiate action against the terrorists hiding inside Afghanistan, if it could not attain the desired outcome of the interactions with Afghan government in this regard, he said, while referring to the cabinet decisions. To a question he said that all evidence, phone calls data and other records of the culprits of the school killings had been handed over the Afghan president. “Now the Afghan government should either act upon it and hand over the perpetrators to us or it should eliminate them on its own,” he said. The minister informed that the cabinet asked the federal government to immediately work out a roadmap for the expulsion of the Afghan refugees from the settled parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The provincial government would go for practical steps to expel these Afghan refugees after 30 days, he said and added that the time for far-reaching and lasting measures had come. The provincial cabinet, Mushtaq Ghani said, also urged the federal government to review its foreign policy and remove lacunae in the same to achieve the objective of peace in the country as security of the country could not be compromised at any cost. It also asked the federal government to take steps for honourable return of the internally-displaced persons (IDPs) to their native areas and sketch out a plan in consultation with the people of the tribal areas to declare the FATA either a separate province or an administrative unit, he maintained. The cabinet, he said, also directed the security high-ups to form teams for continuous search and clean-up operation in the suspicious areas of the province. The provincial minister informed the cabinet directed the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to submit a case if he any needed additional force for security, saying that more personnel would be recruited in police on need-bases as the security threats driven and permanent. The government would even establish a new police for security if it was needed at any stage, he said. The cabinet also resolved to implement the plan of the community police in the province and the elders as well as youth of the areas where the clean-up operations would be carried out would also be taken into confidence. The cabinet also affirmed the demand of the provincial government from the federal government to call back the Frontier Constabulary (FC) platoons from other parts of the country and deploy the force on the border between the settled and tribal areas, Mushtaq Ghani said. He went on to add that it was a tragedy that the force (FC) was not used for the purpose it was established for. It is rather used for the security of VIPs, diplomats and deployment at foreign missions, he further said. The minister also informed that provincial cabinet decided to map out an integrated security plan wherein many institutions and places would be bound to care for their own security and a bill to this effect would also be introduced during the ongoing session of the provincial assembly.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 10:20:09 +0000
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