top civil-military huddle announces crackdown against sectarianism

In a high-level meeting to review progress of the implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP), the country’s top civil-military leadership approved a countrywide crackdown against sectarianism.

“It was unanimously decided during the today’s meeting of the country’s top civil-military leadership that elements challenging the writ of the state would be eliminated,” Nisar said during a press conference after the apex committee’s meeting held at the Prime Minister’s House in Islamabad.

It has been decided that there will be zero tolerance for hate speech and hate literature, the interior minister said.

“There will be no tolerance for calling each other infidel or liable to be killed,” he said. “There is a very thin line between sectarianism and terrorism. They both go hand-in-hand.”

However, the interior minister said the process of registration of madrassas will continue with consultation of their leadership.

“They will first meet with federal secretary interior and then the provincial leadership,” he said, adding ulemas should portray the narrative of Islam and Pakistan rather of those who kill the innocent.

It has been decided that a joint strategy should be adopted by the federal and the provincial governments to deal with several issues, Nisar announced while holding a press conference in Islamabad.

“The issues which came under discussion during the meeting were NGOs, arms licences, security companies and sectarianism,” he said.

“It is the duty of the federal government to keep an eye on the international NGOs and regulate them while at the same time, the provincial governments are also required to regulate the local NGOs, the interior minister maintained.

Nisar informed the media that the interior ministry has prepared a regulatory policy for the NGOs in a record time of just 2.5 months after PM Nawaz had announced the government’s decision to regulate the NGOs in June 2015.

“We will issue the policy very soon after sharing it with provinces to help them formulate a similar policy document to regulate local NGOs.”

Nisar, however, clarified that regulation on NGOs does not mean putting a ban on any of the good work being done by them in the country.

On the issue of arms licences, the minister said that the federal government will shortly introduce a fresh policy for renewing the old arms licences and those who do not get their licences renewed will be cancelled.

The national apex committee also decided to expedite action against militants in Sindh and Balochistan, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar said.

During the meeting, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif accorded their approval to civilian law enforcement agencies to start a crackdown against those responsible for spreading sectarian violence in the country.

The meeting discussed introducing fresh legislation, seeking to completely ban sectarianism and its financiers.

Law enforcers were also directed to start a campaign to purge the country of illegal weapons, they added.

Interior Minister Nisar informed participants of the meeting that over 0.5 million weapons were confiscated by law enforcers during an on-going crackdown against those holding illegal weapons.

Further, the civil-military brass discussed the next phase of the on-going security forces’ operation against militants in the north-western areas of the country.

Earlier, Nisar was briefed on the implementation of NAP across the country by all four chief secretaries, home secretaries, interior secretaries and inspector generals of police of all the provinces who are also a part of the meeting.

During the first session of the meeting, the interior minister was shown presentations on the 20 points of the NAP implementation, prepared by the provinces.

The second session of the meeting was presided over by the premier and was attended by army chief General Raheel Sharif, Director General Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt-Gen Rizwan Akhtar, director general Intelligence Bureau (IB), provincial chief ministers and other high-ranking officials.

The leadership of Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) also attended the session to review NAP implementation.