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| 29 December 2004 | Wednesday | 16 Ziqa'ad 1425 |
No new phone till Nadra verifies details
LAHORE, Dec 28: Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao announces the establishment of provincial chapters of the National Crisis Management Cell to fight terrorism.
In future, he said, all PTCL and mobile telephone connections will be given only after verification of computerized national identity cards of applicants from the Nadra data bank to prevent movement by terrorists.
Phone connections after cnic verification: Sherpao
LAHORE, Dec 28: Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao announced here on Tuesday the establishment of provincial chapters of the National Crisis Management Cell to fight terrorism.
He said in future all PTCL and mobile telephone connections would be given only after the verification of computerized national identity cards of applicants from the Nadra data bank to prevent movement by terrorists.
Another announcement was that the standing order on procedure of security of foreigners prepared by the interior ministry had been issued to all stakeholders on Tuesday. The minister was speaking at a news conference after the conclusion of the 10th inter-provincial meeting on law and order here at the Civil Secretariat.
Mr Sherpao presided over the meeting which began on Monday. It was attended all provincial chief and home secretaries, IGPs and IGs prisons, director generals of Rangers in the Punjab and Balochistan, Coastal Guards, National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC), FIA, National Police Bureau, and senior officials of Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas.
The minister said he was inaugurating the first chapter of the NCMC in Lahore and the rest in the other provinces would be established during the next three months.
These were part of the decision by the meeting to launch a concerted and coordinated campaign by all intelligence and law enforcement agencies to curb terrorism and arrest the most wanted terrorists in the country, he said.
"All law enforcement and intelligence agencies are also being linked on line with the central data-base of the NCMC in the ministry of interior to facilitate the sharing of information between them," said Mr Sherpao.
He said the meeting took a decision on the telephone connections to discourage "benami" (fictitious) accounts invariably used by terrorists to manage their funds.
He said security of foreigners was a matter of great concern for Pakistan and that was why the meeting decided that the dedicated foreign security cell in the interior ministry would coordinate with all provincial home departments.
The meeting decided that in future the cost effective security of foreigners would be included in the cost of every project that would engage them. The NCMC director-general was asked to visit all project sites where foreigners were working anywhere in the country to re-evaluate security arrangements for them, the minister said.
Replying to questions, he said fight against terrorism was an on-going process. "We cannot fix a time limit but it is clear on all that the fight is the focal point number one. We would like terrorism to be eliminated from Pakistan and use all resources for it," he said.
Mr Sherpao said the meeting discussed to advance the fight more vigorously. The ISPR director-general also gave a briefing on media management. He declined to give the exact number of the arrested terrorists in the country. But said a lot many had been arrested from tribal and urban areas in the country after 9/11.
The minister said all the arrested terrorists would be dealt with in accordance with the law of the land. The information gathered from them during interrogation would be used as evidence in courts, he said.
He said the operation in South Waziristan would continue till the arrest of all foreign terrorists hiding there. No country had demanded extradition of any arrested terrorist.
The minister said the government's two-pronged policy of fighting them and having a dialogue with tribal elders had given positive results. The tribal elders are assisting the operations against terrorists and have held out an assurance that they will not provide shelter to any foreign fighter, he said.
He said the meeting discussed in detail the donation collection system of religious seminaries and their foreign students. But a policy regarding them would be evolved in consultation with education and religious ministries which also dealt with them.
The interior minister said the meeting felt the need for strengthening prosecution to clear pendency of anti-terrorism cases by the ATCs. The provinces, which had less number of anti-terrorism courts, had been asked to increase the number.
He hoped that the recent amendments to the Anti-terrorist Act would provide for a fast track for deciding such cases. The high courts would also have special benches to review decisions by the ATCs.
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