MUZAFFARABAD: Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal on Tuesday said the fresh wave of terrorism in Pakistan owed its resurrection to the forces inimical to the progress and prosperity of the country.

“In just three years, a country that was about to be declared as the most dangerous state has become an emerging economy all of a sudden; a country, which people were fleeing from, has become a magnet due to the CPEC. And this is something indigestible to our enemies and they want to crash our economic takeoff by aggravating the law and order situation in Pakistan,” he said.

“However, I believe that the successes achieved cannot be reversed. The way civil and military institutions are jointly working to eliminate the menace of terrorism is bound to thwart all conspiracies against Pakistan,” he added.

Ahsan Iqbal says the system should be made foolproof to prevent enemies from striking

The minister was talking to mediapersons in Lohar Galli resthouse at the close of his two-day visit to the AJK capital - a follow-up of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s recent visit to address the region’s fiscal concerns.

To a question, Mr Iqbal said India’s hand cannot be ruled out in terrorist attacks in Pakistan “because Indian spies arrested in Pakistan confessed that they had been launched to destabilise Pakistan.”

He added: “We should try to make our system foolproof to such an extent that it does not give any opening to our enemies to strike against us.”

About the Panama leaks, the minister said since the PTI and other opposition parties had failed in every field of politics they wanted to use the shoulders of the court to fire at the PML-N government.

“From general elections in Azad Kashmir to Gilgit-Baltistan to the by-elections and local government elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, they have been rejected everywhere.

Now they want to get from the court what they failed to achieve from politics,” he said, referring to the PTI.

“But they will fail in the court as well, because the court does not deliver judgment according to the political wishes (of litigants) but the Constitution and law.”

The minister said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif believed that the federation would strengthen only through inclusive development and respecting the rights of all provinces and regions.

Fata and GB were being brought in the mainstream with the same view, he said.

As far as AJK was concerned, the prime minister had categorically directed that it should be granted all those rights that were enjoyed by the provinces, he added.

He said the prime minister had also directed that AJK should get its due share in the National Finance Commission award.

The minister said AJK had been linked with CPEC through Mangla-Mirpur-Muzaffarabad-Mansehra highway.

An industrial zone would also be established in AJK to boost industrialisation in the area, he said.

Announcing that the federal government would also take steps to link AJK with fibre optic cable coming from China, he said a project to launch 3-G internet service in AJK had also been approved.

“In order to turn AJK and GB into developed areas, the federal government will not only meet all of their needs but also remove their sense of deprivation,” he vowed.

The federal government would also fund Rs2.44 billion AJK Legislative Assembly complex in Muzaffarabad and the prime minister would soon lay its foundation, he said.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2017