ISLAMABAD: Leaders of the political parties represented in parliament have underlined the need for confronting terrorists with an iron hand and called for concerted efforts to defeat the enemies of peace.

The consensus was reached at the first meeting of an anti-terrorism national action committee held here on Friday under the chairmanship of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.

The committee has been assigned the task to work out within a week a national action plan for countering terrorism.

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A participant of the meeting told Dawn that the committee members were unanimous that ‘enough is enough’ and time had come for a decisive action against terrorists. He said the political leaders had shared ideas on how to achieve the target.

Representatives of almost all political parties, including the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, attended the meeting.

Briefing reporters after the marathon session, Afrasiab Khatak of the Awami National Party, who has been named as the committee’s focal person, said the meeting had decided to form a working group of experts to review legal and administrative matters. It will submit its report to the committee at the next meeting on Monday.

He said the composition of the committee would be announced by the interior minister (on Saturday).

Informed sources told Dawn that Motorways Inspector General Zulfikar Cheema, a member of the government’s committee which had negotiated with the Taliban, Rustam Shah Mohmand, and two former directors general of FIA, Tariq Khosa and Wasim Ahmad, were most likely to be members of the working group.

First meeting of national action committee held under interior minister

Afrasiab Khatak said the decisions taken and recommendations made at a multi-party conference held in Peshawar under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after the killing of schoolchildren, as well as during a meeting at the GHQ, would be made part of the action plan. The final action plan will be ready in a week.

Mr Khatak said it was observed that the media should desist from glorifying terrorists and that the government had been asked to review the existing laws relating to terrorism. He said providing ‘terrorists’ an opportunity to appear on the media was tantamount to rubbing salt on the wounds of many people.

In reply to a question, he said the committee was not framing any policy or law; it was just hammering out a plan of action. He said the implementation of the proposed action plan would be monitored and a follow-up would take place.

TIME NOT ENOUGH: Many observers believe that a week is too short a time to prepare the national action plan for countering terrorism and that it will in fact be the new name for the national security policy already on the anvil. They also believe that the plan will be shared with political parties for their endorsement and minor changes on their recommendation will be incorporated in it.

Secretary of the National Security Committee Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq recently said the first draft of the national security policy would be ready by the middle of January.

He said the policy was being timed in a way to provide room to the implementing ministries to seek allocations in the budget for fiscal year 2015-16 for the actions they would be required to take.

He claimed that the policy would be a comprehensive document that would cover both traditional and non-traditional challenges to national security.

Published in Dawn December 20th , 2014