RAWALPINDI: Though mocked by a Supreme Court judge as a ‘joke’, and a citizen renaming it as ‘No Action Plan’, the officialdom insists that the 20-point National Action Plan (NAP) is being implemented in earnest to counter terrorism in the country.

This week, the Rawalpindi district police reported that since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced the NAP on December 24, 2014, they have registered 1,590 cases and arrested more than 1,900 individuals for violating the new anti-terrorism laws.

But a senior police officer candidly admitted to Dawn that “instead of implementing the good NAP in letter and spirit, our government is concentrating more on registration of cases under the new laws and cramming more and more people in jails.”

Unlike other countries fighting the same menace, Pakistani prisons have no strategy or programme to rehabilitate those arrested in terrorism-related cases, he said.

Police experts say the conviction rate of terror suspects is disappointing because of lack of coordination between police and prosecution.

“Completion of challans is delayed in the cases in which the accused are unidentified, like wall chalking, and prosecution suffers because fresh law graduates inducted in the police department lack experience,” noted the officer.

Under the NAP, it was planned to register and regulate seminaries and madressahs. There exist 1,256 seminaries and madressahs in Rawalpindi but 749 of them are still unregistered. That would mean majority of the religious students on their rolls are unknown when the 507 registered madressahs alone have 74,401 students, including more than 100 foreign students.

Similarly registration of Afghan refugees and return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to tribal areas were listed as “top priorities” in the NAP but no census of them have taken place yet. In fact, inflow of the IDPs has increased in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, meanwhile.

Intelligence officials believe that if the authorities do not control the situation, continuous migration of people will create law and order situation in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad and multiply their traffic problems.

Of the 1,590 cases registered with the Rawalpindi district police under NAP since January, 91 cases related to the Punjab Sound System in which 116 people were arrested. Another 107 cases were registered and 90 people arrested for violating ban on wall chalking.

Similarly, 561 cases were registered and 890 people arrested under the Punjab Information of Temporary Residents Ordinance, while 47 people were arrested in 58 cases registered by the local police under the Security of Vulnerable Establishments’ Ordinance.

An amendment in Arms Ordinance 1965 that prohibits carrying a display of arms nabbed 756 people in 758 cases. And four individuals were arrested in four cases of distributing hate material.

Eleven people were arrested in as many cases registered under the maintenance of public order (MPO) law.

Although NAP calls for speedy trial, with day-to-day hearing, none of the cases has gone through that process. Even the cases registered under the Anti-Terrorism Act are not being heard daily.

Participants of a recent top level meeting held to review the implementation of NAP and the conviction of accused were surprised to learn that 90 per cent of the cases were pending in the courts.

A senior police official, however, commented that once the accused is arrested and the challan is submitted in the court for trial, the police’s role is over.

“It is up to the courts to convict the accused or release him in case of faulty investigation by the police. The main concern is the backlog,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 21st, 2015

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