ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has said that military courts are still needed in the country.

Talking to journalists on Sunday, he said it was difficult to understand that why some people were afraid of giving another extension to military courts.

He said that according to a military spokesman, 717 cases were heard by the military courts in four years and 648 of them had been decided and as a result 345 culprits had been awarded death sentences.

Mr Hussain said this fact should not be ignored that the National Action Plan (NAP) was approved with the support of both civil and military leaderships of the country. The military had fulfilled all its responsibilities assigned to it in NAP, but civilian institutions had remained unsuccessful in completing their work, he added.

He said that after the Army Public School tragedy in 2014, the meeting which had approved the formation of NAP was attended by leaders of all major political parties, including then Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz president Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan Peoples Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan, Awami National Party chief Asfandyar Khan Wali, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Qaumi Watan Party chairman Aftab Sherpao.

Mr Hussain said he himself attended that meeting and witnessed the unanimous support the plan for formation of NAP received from the country’s civil and military leaderships.

The PML-Q chief said the country still needed military courts to deal with the problem of terrorism. Therefore, he added, political parties should not oppose another extension in the tenure of ­military courts.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2019