SUKKUR: Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, PPP’s Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah has said that the government should give an in-camera briefing to Parliament on efforts to eliminate terrorists’ nurseries from the country and the arrest of the RAW agent from Balochistan.

He made the demand while talking to journalists at his residence here on Monday. Mr Shah said that the Lahore carnage cannot be termed a failure of the government, adding however, that a stronger Pakistan was a challenge for the government. He said that the government and other institutions should focus on terrorism and leave other issues aside for the time being.

He said that the government would have to take the mature step of eliminating terrorists’ nurseries from the country, adding that to stop terrorism, they would have set right the situation at home before addressing the ‘other side’.

He said that the PPP’s stand on the matter was quite clear as his party was against terrorism and stood with the government. He said that Pakistan was a peaceful country, but was being strangled deliberately at the hands of terrorism.

The Opposition Leader said that in these modern times, it was not difficult for the institutions to apprehend those responsible for the incident, adding that all institutions would have to be more active to stop terrorism.

According to Mr Shah, it could not be said for certain if the Lahore attack was a reaction to the arrest of the RAW agent. He, however, suggested the government to give an in-camera briefing to Parliament to clarify its position. He said that India wanted to destablise Pakistan and the arrest of their spy was a serious matter as a lot of their activities would now be unearthed. He requested the media not to sensationalise the issue.

Mr Shah said that the gathering of a large number of people in the red zone of Islamabad was a failure of the Islamabad police.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2016