Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Monday said that cracking down on religious and sectarian terrorist groups is the government’s top priority.

Addressing a press conference after a meeting of the federal cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the minister gave credit to the civil-military cooperation for the achievements against terrorism.

He also came out strong against those slamming the government for inaction on the National Action Plan (NAP)’s 20-point agenda. Nisar said NAP was Pakistan’s security policy and it should not be used for political point scoring as no country allows politics on security. The minister said the government had turned things around after coming to power.

Presenting figures to support his assertion, Nisar said terrorism had been on an upsurge since 2006, but peaked after the 2009 operations in Swat and South Waziristan Agency, with 2010 being the worst year in terms of terrorism, when 2,061 terrorist attacks were recorded. But in 2014, this number had gone down to 1640, while so far this year only 695 incidents have been recorded, of which there were no casualties in 305 attacks, the minister added. He said security forces have killed 1,114 terrorists so far. Over 500 terrorists have laid down their arms in Balochistan, where he claimed all terrorist camps were dismantled.