ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan is meeting here on Monday (today) to receive a briefing on the killing last month of foreign tourists at the base of Nanga Parbat and the progress so far made in the investigations.
Talking to Dawn here on Sunday, the chairman of the committee, ANP’s Haji Muhammad Adeel, said the panel had invited the former inspector-general of police (IGP) and former chief secretary of Gilgit-Baltistan to hear their points of view on the terrorists’ attack that gave a bad name to the country.
Besides receiving briefing on the incident from the senior officials of the GB, the chairman said the committee members would also like to know about the impact of the incident on tourism in Gilgit-Baltistan.
The committee, according to the agenda, will also receive a briefing on prevailing “water crisis in Gilgit, its reasons and steps taken by the GB government to resolve the problem”.
Gunmen dressed as paramilitary police had killed nine foreign climbers and a Pakistani in an unprecedented attack in the Himalayas on June 23 in a security failure just weeks after the new PML-N government had assumed office.
The night-time raid was among the worst attacks on foreigners in Pakistan in a decade. The foreign climbers were staying at a camp, at around 4,200 feet above sea level, near Nanga Parbat, one of the highest mountains in the world, in the Diamer district of Gilgit-Baltistan.
Next day, Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan declared on the floor of the National Assembly that the attack on foreigners was an attack on Pakistan and also announced that the IGP and the chief secretary had been sacked.
Later, two proscribed organisations — Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Jundullah — claimed responsibility for the attack. The TTP claimed that the Janud-i-Hafsa faction of the militant organisation had carried out the attack to “avenge the killing of their front-rank leader, Waliur Rehman, and to express anger at the international community for its continued support to drone strikes.”
On the other hand, a spokesman for Jundullah simply said it had carried out the attack because foreigners were their enemies.
