LAHORE: Following the suicide attack on a census team here on Wednesday, Chief of General Staff Lt Gen Bilal Akbar called Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to discuss possibilities of greater civil-military cooperation against terrorism.

While there has been no official word on the telephonic conversations between the top civil and military leadership, sources said that the chief of general staff, who had previously supervised the Karachi operation as director general of the paramilitary Rangers, discussed various aspects of the terror incident with the civil leaders.

He called for improved coordination between the army and civilian law enforcement agencies and expediting action under Operation Raddul Fasaad for effective results.

The interior minister was quoted as expressing concern at the fact that the unfortunate incident had taken place despite a prior intelligence report in this regard.

In the light of the discussion, the Punjab inspector general of police directed a review of security measures for census teams and considered deploying police in plain clothes at a safe distance to foil any untoward incident in future.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2017