KARACHI: Terrorism cannot be eliminated without rooting out corruption and ensuring the rule of law without any political expediency, because without initiating action against militants across the board, life and property of the people cannot be protected.

This demand was made by a multiparty conference on ‘Peace­ful Sindh, peaceful Pakistan’, organised jointly by the Qaumi Awami Tehreek and Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan on Thursday at the residence of the late Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani in Clifton. The conference, participated in by about two dozen political, nationalist and religious parties, termed corruption and terrorism as two faces of the same coin.

The MPC leaders fully endorsed the recently announced Operation Raddul Fasaad by the army and said if such an operation had been launched a few years back, Pakistan would have been peaceful today.

Condemning the recurring incidents of terrorism in different cities, the conference deplored that innocent people, including children, women and elderly persons, had been targeted in the recent series of bomb blasts and suicide attacks in Charsadda, Peshawar, Quetta, Lahore, and at the shrines of Shah Noorani and Shahbaz Qalandar.

The conference said terrorists had no religion, nor any consideration for language or race. It demanded that there should be no compromise against terrorists and corrupt elements, including those involved in the Baldia factory fire tragedy, Nishtar Park, Karsaz and Abbas Town bomb blasts, and that they should be taken to task without any discrimination.

At the end of the conference, which was presided over by JUP chief Maulana Owais Shah Noorani Siddiqui, a joint communiqué adopted unanimously and read out by Qaumi Awami Tehreek head Ayaz Latif Palijo, said that in the absence of an independent foreign policy and unbridled corruption, anti-Pakistan forces were shedding the blood of innocent people for their vested interests. In the backdrop of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project, anti-Pakistan world powers had spurred terrorism, creating a sense of fear and uncertainty in the country, which also had slowed down the pace of action on the National Action Plan.

It highlighted the need for severe action against terrorists to protect Pakistan’s 220 million people, who believed in peace, humanity and tolerance.

The MPC was of the view that Pakistan, including Sindh, was not a yateem khana (orphanage), therefore the over 2.5 million illegal Afghans, Indians, Burmese, Iranians and all other foreigners staying in Karachi and other areas be repatriated to secure the borders.

The conference also called for improving the education system on modern lines to eliminate the mindset of terrorism and the thousands of closed schools and colleges be opened and libraries be set up at the union council level.

The MPC was also of the opinion that in order to root out terrorism and other crimes, elimination of unemployment, hunger and poverty was necessary. Therefore, an industrial zone be set up in every district of Sindh, unemployed youths be provided technical training and every unemployed youth be provided a Rs20,000 monthly allowance.

Referring to the tragedy of Sehwan, the conference said if better treatment facilities had been available to the injured, scores of lives could have been saved. It demanded that the district be provided a 1,000-bed hospital with an ICU ward equipped with necessity facilities.

Earlier, in his address to the MPC, Maulana Owais Noorani reiterated his call to deweaponise the country. He said Karachi had more dumps of weapons than Waziristan, and questioned the performance of the 24 intelligence agencies, which seemed to be unaware of these arms dumps in the city.

QAT chief Ayaz Lateef Palijo said Pakistan was strategically under attack by terrorists with the backing of foreign powers to destabilise the country.

Qari Mohammad Usman of the Jamiat UIema-i-Islam said that if the nationalist parties pledged to form a united front to contest elections to liberate Sindh from the parties which had been exploiting the people, the religious parties would join them.

Mumtaz Kalhoro of the Jamaat-i-Islami said that peace could only be restored to Sindh and the country if all patriotic forces united under one banner.

Younus Buneri of the Awami National Party said the highest number of people who had suffered with every operation were the Pakhtuns and so far, 1,200 ANP workers had been killed.

Allama Azhar Hussain Naqvi of the Majlis-i-Wahdatul Muslimeen said that if the operation had been carried out across the board, the entire nation would not have suffered. He said the implementation of all points of the National Action Plan would guarantee success of Raddul Fasaad.

Sarwat Ejaz Qadri of the Pakistan Sunni Tehreek said that until ‘facilitators’ remained sitting in parliament, terrorism could not be eliminated from the country.

Waseem Aftab of the Pak Sarzameen Party said that today’s Pakistan demanded that whatever complaints one had against the other, they be ignored and everyone should play their role to save the country.

Liaquat Ali Jatoi, a former Sindh chief minister and leader of the Awami Ittehad, said the PPP during its nine years had done only one job: “legalising corruption”.

Arif Jatoi traced the history of hardships being faced by Pakistan to the 1980s when Kalashnikov was made accessible to everyone against Rs10,000.

Rauf Sassoli said the province needed fresh demarcation on the basis of culture.

Amanullah Gichki, Iqbal Tareen, Illahi Bakhsh Bikik, Aslam Ghori, Karamat Ali, Ehsanullah Memon, Faisal Vawda, Aslam Baloch and others also spoke.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2017