Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Combating terrorism is not military’s prowess nor could it be effectively fought without civilian law enforcement agencies, especially the police force, said Tariq Pervez, former coordinator of NACTA.

He was addressing a public seminar on ‘Counter Violent Extremism’ organised by the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies. Pervez further said that not only that there was a need for the civilianisation of the counter-terrorism approach, a coherent policy with short-, medium- and long-term policy objectives needed to replace ad hocism. The intelligence-based operations and civil-military joint initiatives like Radd-ul-Fasaad would prove futile in the longer run if the production of terrorism’s foot soldiers was not stopped, he added.

Senator Farhatullah Babar, while addressing the seminar, said that the civilian government right now was just sitting in the driving seat with hands on a look-alike wheel, while the actual control of the vehicle was in someone else’s hands. He said the civilians needed to take that control back in order to wage an effective war against the menaces of terrorism and extremism. He wondered why the process of mainstreaming FATA was stopped, asking the government to immediately mainstream the area, as committed.

Senator Jehanzeb Jamaldini pointed out the double standards prevalent in society and politics that he said were the reason why the youth were becoming more and more radicalised. “We want secularism in India but the word riles us up when used for Pakistan,” he added. He said having lost his son to this meaningless and gory terrorism he firmly believed that the state and specially the civilian institutions could not abdicate their responsibility of keeping the citizens safe.

Syeda Deep, a human rights activist from Lahore, said that radicalisation sponsored through seminaries and various politico-extremist outfits. To this, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Human Rights Barrister Zafarullah responded by reminding of the ‘jihad’ syllabus prepared for Pakistan by the professors at the Nebraska University. He said the PML-N leadership was aware of all these concerns and probably agreed with them too, but it was not easy to correct the follies committed over 50 years.

Leader of the House in Senate Raja Zafarul Haq shared his recent experience of being part of Pakistan’s parliamentary delegation that visited Kabul. “When we went to the Afghan parliament, we saw two life-size pictures of Speaker Ayaz Sadiq and myself,” he said. He informed the participant that contrary to their perceptions, all Afghans, especially Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, welcomed them warmly and called Pakistan and Afghanistan twin brothers. Raja Zafarul Haq stressed the need for being open-minded and warm-hearted towards “our Western neighbour” while reminding the world to recognise the sacrifices Pakistan had rendered in the war on terror. He vowed to bring a resolution in the Senate to constitute “committee of the whole” to address the issue of extremism confronting the country.

The speakers at the seminar repeatedly called upon parliament to help confront the issue by instilling a fresh narrative, overseeing policies impacting internal peace, tightening rules and procedures of extremist-fighting bodies, and above all, holding debates on the causes and remedies of extremism.

These recommendations came at the launch of a report titled ‘National Strategy of Inclusive Pakistan’, aimed at countering extremism, which was extracted from the findings of the 10 national-level consultations; each session discussing one specific theme or entry point, extracted from years of work of the PIPS.

The countering violent extremism (CVE) strategy, it was noted, should consist of soft approaches, which take into account measures that tackle extremism in the long run.