KARACHI: Against the backdrop of a recent wave of terrorism across the country, security authorities in the provincial metropolis sat together on Wednesday and decided to further improve coordination among them to face any challenge.

The recent acts of terrorism in Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar sent ripples through the power corridors and made the heads of the paramilitary Rangers, Sindh police and provincial chiefs of intelligence agencies to plan their strategy in face of potential threats here.

A spokesperson for the paramilitary force said that the director general of Rangers, Major General Mohammad Saeed, chaired a high-level meeting at the Rangers headquarters, which was also attended by Sindh police chief A.D. Khowaja, Karachi police chief Mushtaq Mahar, Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) chief Sanaullah Abbasi and heads of spy outfits and senior Rangers’ officials.

He said in a brief statement that the participants of the meeting reviewed the security arrangements for ensuring law and order in Karachi in the wake of the recent incidents in the country.

The meeting decided to further strengthen coordination among the law-enforcement agencies in order to meet any eventuality in an effective way.

The Rangers chief urged the law-enforcement agencies to build strong coordination and formulate solid security plan to fight the challenge.

Sources privy to the meeting told Dawn that it was decided that any information about a potential threat would be shared with all law-enforcement agencies on a daily basis for better coordination.

Only on Sunday, terrorism revisited Karachi when an armoured personnel carrier (APC) of police was attacked with an improvised explosive device in North Nazimabad and then unknown assailants fired upon a DSNG van of Samaa TV in the same area, killing a media worker.

The outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan had claimed responsibility of the attack on the channel’s vehicle. The police authorities have set up two separate teams to investigate the incident.

However, a senior officer on Wednesday said that no concrete evidence had emerged during the initial probe to ascertain the possible identity and the motive of the killers.

The deadly attack on the TV channel underscored a challenge for law-enforcement agencies in the metropolis, where a Rangers-led operation has been under way for over three years.

Sunday’s attack in Karachi was followed by terrorist strikes in Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar, triggering fear and panic among the people.

Investigators believed that the recent attack on the media in Karachi was linked to the renewed wave of terrorism across the country.

They thought that the militants, who had been restricted only to social media after a successful military operation, were re-emerging in different parts of the country.

“The attack on the van of a news channel cannot be segregated [from] other incidents in the country,” said a security official.

“The militants or their outfits have re-emerged and choosing soft targets to make their presence felt or to convey their message, which is always [aimed at] spreading fear and panic among people,” added the official.

“Although incidents of targeted killings on sectarian grounds took place in the city, for the past one year no major terrorist attack had taken place,” said CTD official Raja Umer Khattab.

He added that Sunday’s attack on the APC in North Nazimabad was aimed at attracting attention of the media to target them.

He suspected that “sleeper cells” of militant outfits had become active in the city. However, he claimed that the law enforcers had accelerated their efforts to arrest the members of such cells.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2017