ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan described Sunday’s bomb attack in Bannu cantonment area as a clear security lapse and said the army would investigate the matter.

Addressing a press conference here, he said the explosion had taken place in a private vehicle hired by the Frontier Corps (FC) to move troops.

He has asked Khyber Pakhtunkhwa FC Inspector General Maj Gen Ghayyur Mehmood why proper care was not taken when private vehicles were hired.

The minister said it remained to be determined if it was a suicide attack.

The blast was so powerful that it destroyed the vehicle. All the bodies were unidentifiable.

The minister also spoke about the internal security policy to be unveiled on Monday, but did not take any questions. When asked if the banned TTP had agreed to hold talks, he said: “We will soon meet again to discuss other issues.”

The deadly Bannu attack appears to have changed the situation because the government which has been declaring dialogue as its number one priority chose not to come up with an immediate reaction to the conditional offer of talks made by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.

It was believed that the government would come up with a response to the Taliban’s offer, but the press conference turned out to be a routine interaction.

Chaudhry Nisar condemned the attack and said that since it had taken place in a cantonment area the army would hold an inquiry and details were expected to be available by Monday.

He said the internal security policy would be presented at a special meeting of the federal cabinet.

There will be three components of the policy — secret, strategic and operational. It will envisage effective measures to curb terrorism.

He said the National Counter-Terrorism Authority would be energised and a joint intelligence directorate with representatives from 26 military and civilian intelligence agencies would work under it to correlate intelligence. Modern technology will be used to gather intelligence, track down miscreants and take swift action against them.

The minister said actionable intelligence would be identified and a rapid response force would act on it.

He said thousands of excerpts of chatter generated everyday would be translated into actionable intelligence. He said mapping would be conducted in cities to create people’s identity databases.

Chaudhry Nisar stressed that like all over the world, security in Pakistan could not be ensured by setting up pickets. Modern technology was needed to effectively counter terrorism.

He said the aim of intelligence gathering would be to identify networks and their linkages. “You might get some intelligence report from Fata and find its links in Karachi, Quetta, Islamabad or elsewhere.”

He said the policy was aimed at securing the areas which had become targets of terrorists.

He said a well-equipped rapid response force would be set up in Islamabad and replicated in the provinces. The air wing of the interior ministry will be placed at the disposal of the force.

Referring to opposition’s criticism about the government’s failure to either initiate dialogue or take on the terrorists, he said the government was ready to give a lead role to the critics if they were in a position to expedite the process.

He asked the critics not to confuse the nation by using the issue for point scoring.

He said the core objective of the proposed joint intelligence directorate was to counter terrorism and not to carry out surveillance of politicians and media persons.

He said the entire structure of the directorate and rapid response force would be completed in a year.