The National Action Plan (NAP) to counter terrorism has not been fully implemented due to various reasons, including lack of civilian ownership of the plan for its execution, confusion on the definition of terrorism and absence of a national narrative on terrorism. However, the successful Karachi operation and merger of the Federally Administrative Tribal Areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were important achievements under the plan.
This was the crux of deliberations at a ceremony organised by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), a German political foundation Pakistan and Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), an Islamabad based think-tank here on Thursday to launch two reports- “Defining Terrorism in Pakistan” and “Assessing the National Action Plan to counter terrorism and defining terrorism in Pakistan.”
The speakers stressed the need to have a clear definition of terrorism and to execute the NAP in letter and sprite with its ownership by the government to eliminate terrorism from our country. They said that 14 committees were formed to work on the NAP but only two of them became functional.
Hamayoun Khan, Program Coordinator FES, briefly introduced both reports and explained working of FES in Pakistan. “These two reports have come out at very important time in our history, when are faced sword of FATF for fairly long time and at time when Pakistan has suffered for almost two decades from the menace of terrorism where we have lost more than 50 thousand lives and billions of dollars and battle is still not over,” Khan said.
Amir Rana, head of PIPS and author of the reports, talked about content of both reports in details. He said that definition of terrorism in Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997 was broader and vague. “The Supreme Court of Pakistan asked Parliament of Pakistan in 2019 to define terrorism in Pakistan.”
Tariq Khosa, former senior police official who also headed of FIA, termed both reports a timely intervention by FES and PIPS to bring the focus of government and other stakeholders back to the menace of terrorism in the country. “ATA 1997 used for political purposes to an extent that anti-terrorism courts overloaded with the cases. This made these courts almost redundant,” he said we lost focus. “All stakeholders and political elements needs to sit together to define the pathway to fight terrorism,” he requested Barrister Shehzad Akbar, advisor to PM on Interior and Accountability to make sure recommendations of both reports would reach to PM and parliament.
Barrister Shehzad Akbar, advisor to PM on Interior and Accountability confessed that focus of government might have shifted from terrorism and extremism to other issues. He termed both reports as a wake up call and promised to take all the recommendations to the PM and Parliament.
