ISLAMABAD: The government announced on Saturday its plan to track down and try all those involved in attacks on the Parliament House and the PTV building as well as in other incidents of vandalism, but said the action would be strictly based on documentary evidence.

“No general crackdown has been launched nor is one being contemplated,” Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told a press conference here at Punjab House.

He brushed aside a perception that the government had pushed the panic button after Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan’s call to his supporters to mark with a big bang the completion of one month of the party’s ‘Azadi march’.

He said an excerpt intercepted and conveyed to the ministry by a military intelligence agency on Thursday had indicated that five or six terrorists were heading for Islamabad with the venue of the sit-ins as their potential target.

He said they were probably going to use motorcycles so a ban had been imposed on pillion riding for 10 days, while security was beefed up on the city’s entry routes.

The minister said security at the venue of the sit-ins had also been enhanced and bomb identification and disposal experts had also been deployed there, including some people from the army.

He invited Imran Khan and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Tahirul Qadri to work out a security plan with the police and district administration.

He said anybody arrested without any genuine reason would be released.

A member of PAT’s negotiating team, Asad Abbas Naqvi, had been arrested, but immediately released on his orders, he said.

He expressed the hope that after his remarks the PTI and PAT would review their decision to suspend talks. “Issues are settled on the negotiating table and not on the streets,” he said.

He said a special branch employee had been hung upside down and tortured and he was still under treatment at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.

“If this is the way they treat the people providing them security, they will be responsible for any incident that takes place,” he said.

Chaudhry Nisar said letters had also been sent to the PTI and PAT chiefs, but did not elaborate their contents.

He said the TV channels had captured the scenes of the mob attack on the PTV building and the video recordings shared with the government had been under technical assessment at the National Database and Registration Authority for a few days.

So far 20 of the attackers have been identified by the Nadra system and seven of them have been arrested.

The minister said it was not an attack against the government but a state organisation. He said eight costly cameras had been stolen during the attack, while mobile phones and purses had been snatched from women.

He said both the PTI and the PAT had claimed that the attackers did not belong to them and now they should have no objection to their arrest.

He offered to share the documentary evidence with Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri and assured them that any reservations over some wrong arrests expressed by them would be immediately addressed.

He also showed snaps of the attacks on the Parliament House and PTV, protesters wielding batons, slingshots and marbles, power and water theft, violence against police and protesters wearing gas masks.

He rejected claims that the sit-ins were peaceful and said more than 10 people had been arrested with 12-bore repeater guns. He said those arrested claimed to be associated with some security agency, but no agency has so far come for their rescue.

The minister alleged that the aim of the other side was to get some dead bodies to help achieve its objectives. He alleged that the protesting groups were using children, women and elders to achieve their political ambitions.

Published in Dawn, September 14th , 2014