October 18, 2006	Wednesday	Ramazan 24, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 17: The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Interior on Tuesday sought a detailed report on deployment of rockets at different places in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad and directed the Punjab government to control street crimes in the province.

The committee headed by Sardar Talib Hassan Nakai, MNA felt concern over the security arrangement in the capital and Rawalpindi and directed the ministry to brief the committee in the next meeting regarding the security measurements, a member of the committee Nayyar Hussain Bukhari MNA told Dawn.

It also directed the Punjab government to take appropriate measures to control street crimes like murders, robberies, trafficking, and snatching of cars, motorcycles and mobile phones at gunpoint.

He said the committee asked the officials of interior ministry about a news regarding involvement of armed forces’ officials in the rocket plot. However, a ministry official denied involvement of any official of the armed forces in the case and termed the news baseless.

They informed the meeting that a clarification of the news had also been published in national dailies.

The government has managed to arrest eight Al Qaeda suspects allegedly involved in deploying Russian-made rockets in different parts of the twin cities last week.

The interior ministry was of the view that a group of terrorists wanted to create general chaos and insecurity among the people in the twin cities by deploying anti-tank rockets in three different places in the two cities -– the Ayub Park near the Army House, at the Federal Secretariat and at Shakkarparian.

The recovery of rockets was made last week after one of the 107mm rockets landed at the Ayub Park on October 4. Four such rockets were recovered from two different places in Islamabad on the next day.

The NA Standing Committee on Interior also considered the National Database and Registration Authority (Amendment) Bill 2006, the Police Order (Second Amendment) Bill 2006, and the Stamp (Amendment) Bill 2006.

The committee recommended to withdraw both the National Database and Registration Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2006 and Police Order (Second Amendment) Bill, 2006.

It recommended to approve the Stamp (Amendment) Bill, 2006, to bring the Islamabad Capital Territory at par with the province of Punjab regarding levying stamp duties.

The meeting was also attended by MNAs Manzoor Hussain Wassan, Onaza Ehsan, Amjad Ali Warraich, Malik Niaz Ahmad Jakhar, Syed Nayyar Hussain Bokhari, Mian Mohammad Aslam and Dr Fareed Ahmed Piracha.