ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told the National Assembly on Friday that there had been “most effective” coordination with the new Afghan rulers as well as better cooperation with provinces in fighting terrorism on the issue, for which he won some rare opposition plaudits.

Giving what seemed as only fragments from investigations into the devastating gun-and-bomb suicide attacks on the Army Public School in Peshawar in December and on an Imambargah in Shikarpur last week, he also told the house that the federal government was pursuing a “very proactive” anti-terrorist work in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh provinces and that the same was the case between the provinces.

The minister interrupted the thinly atten­ded proceedings to clarify what he called incorrect remarks attributed in a section of the press to his last speech in the house on Wednesday mainly about the Feb 2 Shikarpur attack that killed more than 60 people during Friday prayers and denied having put the blame on the Sindh government of PPP.

Instead, he said, he had stated that the federal government was working in cooperation with the KP and Sindh governments.

He said that despite only some badly mutilated presumed parts of the Shikarpur attacker’s body found at the crime scene — a head with no clear features, a finger that can make no fingerprint, and an unrecognisable foot — substantial progress had been made towards establishing the identification of the attacker.

He also said that a tailor who stitched the bomber’s clothes had been found but declined to give any more details so as not to help the other involved to escape.

And it was while referring to some recent protests in Peshawar by some of the relatives of 149 students and staff killed in the Dec 16 attack on the school there over the alleged lack of investigative progress that Chaudhry Nisar praised “complete cooperation” with Afghanistan and “most effective coordination that did not happen in history before”.

He said this cooperation came after Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif was sent to Afghanistan soon after the incident, when he held talks with the new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

He cited two anti-militant operations carried out by the Afghan and foreign coalition forces near the Pakistani border, where Pakistani Taliban fugitives are believed to be hiding, but declined to speak more about the situation on that front so as not to let the militants escape.

The minister assured the families of those killed and wounded in the Peshawar attack by an estimated six attackers — all of whom were reported killed — that “we will never forget that incident, will avenge every drop of blood and will not rest until Pakistan is rid of this cancer (of terrorism)”.

Chaudhry Nisar’s assurances of support and cooperation with the provinces were welcomed by lawmakers from all the three opposition parties present in the house — the Pakistan Peoples Party, Jamaat-i-Islami and Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

However, the minister seemed piqued by a demand from a PPP member from Sindh, Abdul Sattar Bachani, that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif or the interior minister still visit Shikarpur to remove a perceived “sense of deprivation” because only one federal minister went there after the attack, and that the federal government announce special package for the bereaved families who, he said, were mostly poor people.

Chaudhry Nisar said he was prepared to quietly present a record of how many ministers or a prime minister visited sites of similar tragedies during the previous PPP-led government and seemed to dismiss the demand for a special package by citing “financial constraints” and saying that if such a precedent had been left by the previous government “our task would have been easy”.

The house was later adjourned until 4pm on Monday.

Published in Dawn February 7th , 2015

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