Daily Times

A meeting of the federal cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the suicide attack in a mosque at the Peshawar Police Lines.

The cabinet further stressed the need of promoting national unity and solidarity, and raising of cohesive voice by all the political forces of the country against terrorists. It called upon all the political forces to shun their divisions and grievances, express unity for the interest of the country and its people, and unanimously converge on the agenda for elimination of terrorism, so that the national security, solidarity, peace and economy could be protected in an effective manner.

The cabinet, as a representative of the people of Pakistan and their elected government, condemned in the strongest terms the terrorist incident in Peshawar of January 30, and expressed condolences and sympathies with the bereaved families. “The entire nation shares the grief of the bereaved families,” the PM Office Media Wing in a press release said.

The cabinet also prayed for the high ranks of the Shuhada (martyrs) and for their families to bear the losses with fortitude. It also prayed for the early recovery of the injured people.

The cabinet also made it clear that those could neither be the Muslims who targeted fellow Muslims at a place of worship nor deserved to be called human beings. Under the teachings of the Holy Quran and Sunnah and the unanimous opinion of the learned religious scholars, derived from those teachings and declared in the ‘Paigham-e-Pakistan’ that such incidents were openly against the tenets of Islam and ‘Haram’, the cabinet expressed.

It also expressed the resolve to eradicate all forms of terrorism, and ensure the protection of the lives and properties of the public, and that the blood of the Pakistanis would be accounted for. It was decided that the restructuring of the police force of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Counter-Terrorism Department would be carried out, besides the provision of quality training, and solid steps for the supply of the latest weapons and gadgets, so as to avert the occurrence of such incidents in the future. The prime minister also expressed his gratitude to the Chinese president and the premier for expressing solidarity with Pakistan.