National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf on Thursday said an in-camera national security meeting would be held on Friday in the Parliament House to apprise the parliamentarians of the prevailing law and order situation in the country. Chairing the NA session, he said the “in-camera national security meeting will be held on Friday to discuss the current security issues of the country, members of political parties would attend the special session of the Parliament”. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that the military leadership would answer all the questions regarding the current security situation, launching of a fresh military operation and the resettlement of banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Pakistan by the previous civil and military rulers in the in-camera session. The prime minister’s assurance to the National Assembly came as an endorsement of Defence Minister Khawaja Asif’s statement in the assembly that the military leadership would not only take the lawmakers in confidence but address all their concerns on the security situation, military operation and TTP members’ resettlement, among other things. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said the country was facing terrorism for the last several years due to weak policies of General Zia ul Haq and General Pervaiz Musharraf’s dictatorial governments.
While endorsing the points of view of NA members from the areas most affected by terrorism, he said it was unfortunate that the people in those areas who had done nothing wrong , were facing the menace. The minister said Pakistan’s security forces, including the Rangers and police, had rendered unmatched sacrifices to eliminate terrorism from the country. He regretted that terrorists stationed in Afghanistan were relocated to Pakistan with their families, and after their relocation, terrorist activities had increased in the country. He claimed that some of the terrorists, who relocated to Pakistan, had political backing and were sitting at the Zaman-Park residence of Imran Khan. The minister said the scheduled in-camera meeting would be attended by the military leadership, who would answer the questions of political leadership.
Earlier, Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar, independent members of the National Assembly from the South and North Waziristan repsectively, on points of order apprised the House about their concerns pertaining to terrorism resurgence in the newly merged districts of the erstwhile tribal areas. Muhammad Jamal Ud Din of MMAP from South Waziristan urged the Speaker to allow him along with the independent members to present the on ground situation of the newly merged tribal districts and the possible consequences of any operation on the lives of the local masses already impacted by the two decades long war on terror.