Leader of the House in the Senate Ishaq Dar on Friday said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) 2018 deal on terrorists with Kabul and the release of militants for the increase in terror attacks in Pakistan, The News reported Saturday.
Calling for an in-camera briefing on the surge in terrorism and related history, Dar asked if anyone would tell the nation why the policy was reversed in Kabul and hundreds of hardened terrorists forcibly got freed.
The Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) leader recalled that the nation came to know about that understanding only after watching images of Pakistan’s responsible people visiting Kabul and holding negotiations there.
“The matter did not end there, as hundreds of hardened terrorists were forced to be released under an understanding. What was that understanding? Would anyone tell the nation? A policy U-turn was taken on terrorism after the installation of the Taliban government there,” he said.
He regretted that they were engaged, and afterwards, terrorists were released from Pakistani jails, following which there had been a continuous increase in the acts of terrorism across the country and today no one was safe.
Dar also referred to the recent Mianwali incident and called for a realistic approach, and that the nation should without wasting a minute deal with the extremely sensitive challenge, which, he claimed, the past PML-N government had effectively dealt with by starting Zarb-e-Azb and then Operation Raddul Fassad.
There was a time when the international community believed that Pakistan might not be able to take on the terrorists, especially in the northern areas, and it was also said that even the military regime of General Musharraf could not take action against terrorists, he said.
But in September 2013, he noted, this decision was taken and the operation was launched against the menace of terrorism.
He explained the then PML-N government moved forward with a well-defined programme to fix the economy, and extremism and deal with the electricity crisis.
