PESHAWAR, July 6: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leadership was told on Saturday the complexity of the militants’ phenomenon and how difficult it would be to negotiate with a plethora of groups with varied agendas, official sources said.

PTI chairman Imran Khan and vice chairman and deputy parliamentary leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who arrived here to full-day briefings by various government departments, were informed that Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan was not a monolithic organisation and that more than 40 groups were operating with varied agendas making the task of engaging all the more difficult if not impossible.

They were also informed that criminal gangs had also joined forces with militants and to segregate the two would be difficult, the officials said. They were advised to implement a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy prepared by provincial home and tribal affairs department and persuade the federal government to follow suit.

The PTI leadership was also advised against issuing deadlines to implement reform agendas. “The wheel is already there, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” one source quoted a senior government official as saying.

Meanwhile, journalists boycotted a briefing by Provincial Minister Shaukat Yousafzai on Imran and Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s visit and engagements in Peshawar to protest the manhandling and torture of their colleagues by doctors at Khyber Teaching Hospital, Peshawar on Friday.