ISLAMABAD: The Interior Ministry decided on Saturday to submit a detailed report regarding the implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP) to counter terrorism before the Supreme Court to prove, with statistics, that the plan was not mere eyewash.

In a rejoinder to remarks attributed to a Supreme Court judge regarding NAP, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry asserted that it was incorrect to suggest that the NAP “was a joke”.

“Had it been so, international institutions and think-tanks would not have included Pakistan among the few countries where terrorist activities had gradually declined in the last year,” he remarked.

Talking about objections to the NGO funding, he explained that monitoring NGOs and their funding sources were never mentioned in any point of NAP.

As is evident from the name, NAP was not the sole responsibility of a particular ministry, institution or department, but was rather a national agenda and various federal ministries, intelligence agencies, the armed forces and provincial governments were making concerted and coordinated efforts for its implementation, he said.

The spokesperson said a comprehensive report on implementation of NAP would be submitted to the Supreme Court next week.

According to the spokesperson, 60,420 people were arrested during 54,376 search operations since the plan was launched. Around 13,019 intelligence-based operations were conducted and 11,388 intelligence alerts shared.

With regards to cellular safeguards, the spokesperson said that the biometric verification of 97.9 million SIM cards had been completed while 5.1m unverified SIMs had been blocked.

He said 1,776 cases had so far been registered across the country as part of the efforts against publication of hate and provocative material and 1,799 arrests had been made, while 1,512 copies of hate material were confiscated and 71 shops sealed.

The rejoinder also referred to the ongoing operation in Karachi and said a visible decline in terrorism and other crimes had been seen in the city.

He said targeted killings had declined by 44 per cent while incidents of murder, terrorism and theft had gone down by 37, 46 and 23pc, respectively.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play