Rehman Malik fanning provincialism: Shahbaz

[Prometheus]

LAHORE: Fearing that repeated utterances by interior minister Rehman Malik about the Punjabi Taliban are part of a PPP plan aimed at destabilising, if not toppling, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government in Punjab, the PML-N has decided to take its political rival head-on.

Though Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah has been responding to Malik’s assertions about possibilities of army operation in south Punjab, an alleged hotbed of militants aligning with Al-Qaeda and Taliban, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif deemed it necessary to himself come in the open on the issue when the interior minister repeated his stance before parliament’s standing committee the other day.

“The federal interior minister has tried to provoke provincialism by talking about the Punjabi Taliban at a time when unity is needed to cope with internal and external threats,” says a statement by the chief minister issued after he presided over a high-level meeting here on Wednesday held to discuss the recent terrorist attacks in Lahore and elsewhere.

Sources, meanwhile, said a close aide of Shahbaz was camping in south Punjab to monitor a police crackdown against militants and those elements who had ever been related with militant organisations.

Questioning the term ‘Punjabi Taliban’, Shahbaz said terrorists had no language, no province and no religion, and that was why nobody ever mentioned Pashtu, Sindhi or Baloch Taliban.

Use of the term, he lamented, was like rubbing salt into the wounds of the people of Punjab and police rendering sacrifices in the fight against terrorism.

Warning that those who were issuing controversial statements were weakening the campaign against terrorism, Punjab chief minister alleged the federal interior minister had conspired to trigger a clash among the provinces.

Shahbaz, however, did not believe Rehman could go to this extent on his own. Without directly accusing anybody of prompting the interior minister to give ‘provoking statements’, the chief minister, however, said: “…the general impression is that [the] federal minister is speaking someone else’s mind and is engaged in this dangerous game at the behest of his political patron (an obvious reference to President Zardari). ”

He said it was the Punjab government which decided to benefit from the experiences of Islamic countries to improve its performance and capability for combating terrorism and was implementing these measures.

He said Rehman Malik had attempted to pitch people of Pakistan against each other through his statements which should be condemned at every level as no strategy could succeed in dealing with the menace of terrorism without a joint struggle by the entire nationDAWN.COM | Lahore | Shahbaz on ?Punjabi Taliban?: Malik conspiring to trigger clash among provinces

 

[ajpirzada]

Oh really? rehman malik is 100% right. PML N needs to act against these banned outfits which are prospering under their rule.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Oh really? rehman malik is 100% right. PML N needs to act against these banned outfits which are prospering under their rule.

I agree there, but I do think the SS makes a good point here:

Questioning the term ‘Punjabi Taliban’, Shahbaz said terrorists had no language, no province and no religion, and that was why nobody ever mentioned Pashtu, Sindhi or Baloch Taliban.

Use of the term, he lamented, was like rubbing salt into the wounds of the people of Punjab and police rendering sacrifices in the fight against terrorism.

Many Muslims have made similar arguments in questioning the use of the term 'Islamic terrorism', that links Islam with terrorism.

Good to hear about this:

Sources, meanwhile, said a close aide of Shahbaz was camping in south Punjab to monitor a police crackdown against militants and those elements who had ever been related with militant organisations.

 

[M8R]

Then why don't you allow Feds to clean your **** up in Punjab...Southern Punjab has to be cleaned by police (Don't need Army for that) but should not be PUnjab Police..some paramillitary force maybe.

 

[GUNNER]

How do you clean an area when you cannot identify the enemy. This is one of the biggest issues here. I mean, how does South Punjab fit into the terror network. Are there any training areas? No. There are no ammo dumps to be destroyed. Even though South Punjab has the maximum percentage of seminaries, you cannot blow them all up. Infact, Lahore has the biggest number of seminaries in all the Punjab if you talk of a city.
It's not the job of police, leave alone the talk of an army operation. South Punjab is important also for it's location. It is the passage from NWFP into Sindh. There are points which are not guarded or manned e.g from D.G Khan you can move into Rahimyar Khan [the last district of Punjab] unnoticed.
It does provide manpower to terror outfits , but that is not huge if compared to other areas.
You have to take into account the backwardness of the area as well. It is, in Punjab, the most neglected part.
Without addressing all issues, even an operation will be fruitless.

 

[M8R]

How do you clean an area when you cannot identify the enemy. This is one of the biggest issues here. I mean, how does South Punjab fit into the terror network. Are there any training areas? No. There are no ammo dumps to be destroyed. Even though South Punjab has the maximum percentage of seminaries, you cannot blow them all up. Infact, Lahore has the biggest number of seminaries in all the Punjab if you talk of a city.
It's not the job of police, leave alone the talk of an army operation. South Punjab is important also for it's location. It is the passage from NWFP into Sindh. There are points which are not guarded or manned e.g from D.G Khan you can move into Rahimyar Khan [the last district of Punjab] unnoticed.
It does provide manpower to terror outfits , but that is not huge if compared to other areas.
You have to take into account the backwardness of the area as well. It is, in Punjab, the most neglected part.
Without addressing all issues, even an operation will be fruitless.

Give me a break.The backward excuse will not work with Punjab.The Police Operation is meant to work with Intelligence Coordination.More like covert and overt op's.These people are now going to NWFP and causing more havoc there by inviting army to launch more op's there.You should be thankful to people of NWFP.

 

[qaisar52]

Second Ganja again come with some excuse rather than taking action against Sepahe Sahaba or other baned outfits.

 

[GUNNER]

Give me a break.The backward excuse will not work with Punjab.The Police Operation is meant to work with Intelligence Coordination.More like covert and overt op's.These people are now going to NWFP and causing more havoc there by inviting army to launch more op's there.You should be thankful to people of NWFP.

You have me all wrong here. I'm not being unthankful to the people of NWFP. I think i didn't even mention NWFP. On the contrary, i think the peopel of NWFP, or shall we say Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, have sacrificed more than anyone.
My point is that no operation, no matter how big, will help curb terrorism. The root cause must be addressed as well. I would like to see double the amount of development in FATA as compared to South Punjab. But your saying that South Punjab is not under-developed is not right. It's not an excuse. It's one reason out of many.
Yes, the elements in south punjab must be curbed. But that requires a different approach.

 

[DaRk WaVe]

Centre, Punjab in row over ‘Punjabi Taliban’​

ISLAMABAD: The centre and the Punjab government engaged on Wednesday in another was of words, this time on the issue of ‘Punjabi Taliban’.

The row erupted when Interior Minister Rehman Malik accused the Punjabi Taliban of being involved in recent acts of terrorism, including attacks on two places of worship of Ahmadis in Lahore, and also said that they had connections with people in the provincial government.

Punjab Governor Salman Taseer went a step ahead and accused leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-N of having links with what he called the ‘Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab’. The interior minister mentioned the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif accused Mr Malik of trying to create a confrontation among provinces by using the term Punjabi Taliban.

However, the interior minister claimed in a later statement that he had never used the words Punjabi Taliban and had always talked about proscribed organisations involved in extremism and terrorism.

“I have never used the words Punjabi Taliban and I am personally as much against affiliating any terrorist organisation with a province as the chief minister is,” the minister said.

“I have never used a terminology which reflects provincialism, but people know with which names terrorists are being recognised. One can see these names on the internet and in national dailies,” he said.

The minister said he had always talked about terrorist organisations without mentioning which province they belonged to.

Earlier, talking to reporters at a function, Mr Malik said that Lashkar-i-Jhangvi was involved in the attacks on Ahmadis in Lahore.

“Not only the attack on Ahmadis but this organisation was also involved in last year’s attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, on police headquarters in Manawa and many other terrorist activities in the country.”

He said the two suspects captured by people during the attack on Ahmadis belonged to Muzaffargarh and Rahim Yar Khan.

About the chief minister’s statement he said this was not he time for point scoring but for working jointly to curb the menace.

DAWN.COM | National | Centre, Punjab in row over ?Punjabi Taliban?

 

[GUNNER]

Pakistan rules out offensive against Punjab militants
By M Ilyas Khan BBC News, Islamabad

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik has stressed there are no plans for military action against militants in the Punjab province.
His remarks came hours after he told a parliamentary committee that "Punjabi Taliban" were entrenched in southern parts of Punjab.
Mr Malik said they were planning to destabilise the country.
Few Pakistani officials have acknowledged the existence of militant bases in Punjab despite media reports.
Over the past few years Pakistan has been waging a bitter battle against militants in the north of the country.
Any suggestion that the war is now spreading to the rest of Pakistan would raise concerns about the country's stability - both at home and abroad.
'Effective action'
Mr Malik's comments come days after militants killed more than 90 people in attacks on two mosques of the minority Ahmedi Muslim community in Lahore.
The attacks are being blamed on what are called the Punjabi Taliban, a loose alliance of militant groups linked to Taliban and al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan's north-western tribal areas.
The Punjab Chief Minister, Shahbaz Sharif, accused Mr Malik of "provincialism" for his use of the term "Punjabi Taliban".
This is the first time a top government minister has acknowledged that militants have bases in southern parts of Punjab province, which houses more than half of the country's population.
"No military operation is planned against banned [militant] outfits in Punjab... [but] effective action would jointly be taken [with the Punjab government] to eliminate them," Pakistan's official APP news agency quoted him as telling journalists on Wednesday.
Earlier, while briefing a parliamentary interior committee meeting, Mr Malik said groups of "Punjabi Taliban" had been involved in attacks in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and elsewhere in Punjab province.
He said these groups were entrenched in Punjab and were becoming increasingly dangerous.
Most parliamentarians from southern Punjab have been reluctant publicly to admit the existence of militants there, presumably due to reasons of personal security.
The ruling party of the Punjab province, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has also sought to dispel media reports that Taliban fighters hailing from Punjab province may have hideouts there.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

How do you clean an area when you cannot identify the enemy. This is one of the biggest issues here. I mean, how does South Punjab fit into the terror network. Are there any training areas? No. There are no ammo dumps to be destroyed. Even though South Punjab has the maximum percentage of seminaries, you cannot blow them all up. Infact, Lahore has the biggest number of seminaries in all the Punjab if you talk of a city.
It's not the job of police, leave alone the talk of an army operation. South Punjab is important also for it's location. It is the passage from NWFP into Sindh. There are points which are not guarded or manned e.g from D.G Khan you can move into Rahimyar Khan [the last district of Punjab] unnoticed.
It does provide manpower to terror outfits , but that is not huge if compared to other areas.
You have to take into account the backwardness of the area as well. It is, in Punjab, the most neglected part.
Without addressing all issues, even an operation will be fruitless.

As pointed out, identification can be done through proper utilization of law enforcement and intelligence. Simple enforcement, search and seizure (of weapons and explosives) can play a very important role as well. While there may not be many large, open militant training camps in Punjab, brainwashing people to become suicide bombers and stocking and manufacturing explosives and suicide vests requires only a room or a house.

Perhaps you don't remember the incident in which a mosque in a village blew up and killed dozens of people including many children. The Qari was a terrorist supporter and had stored weapons and explosives in a room under the mosque that blew up.

Also, as pointed out, some Madrassas in Punjab are providing a steady stream of recruits to the extremist organizations in NWFP and elsewhere. Proper intelligence and law enforcement work should enable our LEA's to identify, arrest and dismantle these Madrassa's and those who run and finance them (if large individual donors doing so deliberately). There may be need for additional legislation to make preaching and indoctrinating people with such ideology a serious crime.

And finally, there is a strong need to move on the Madrassa registration and reforms, especially Madrassa accountability and regulation. This can dovetail with legislation prohibiting hate-speech and teaching extremist and violent ideology, which the State can then use to appoint auditors and regulators that monitor Madrassa's and Mosques.

Madrassa's teach hundreds of thousands (some estimates suggest millions) of students - the State therefore has a right to regulate these institutes since they impact the lives of millions of young Pakistanis, children especially, at a stage when their minds are open and easy to mold. The State has a responsibility to ensure that those minds are not filled with poison and that the institutions (Madrassa's) provide the youth enrolled with them a proper and modern education to make them productive citizens.

 

[GUNNER]

Perhaps you don't remember the incident in which a mosque in a village blew up and killed dozens of people including many children. The Qari was a terrorist supporter and had stored weapons and explosives in a room under the mosque that blew up.

Also, as pointed out, some Madrassas in Punjab are providing a steady stream of recruits to the extremist organizations in NWFP and elsewhere. Proper intelligence and law enforcement work should enable our LEA's to identify, arrest and dismantle these Madrassa's and those who run and finance them (if large individual donors doing so deliberately). There may be need for additional legislation to make preaching and indoctrinating people with such ideology a serious crime.

I clearly remember the incident since i followed it closely. And it wasn't in south punjab. It is central Punjab to be exact. The Maulvi had fought in the soviet jihad like many others and the links remain to this day.

I agree with the part that Madrassa reform is necessary. It's not about the curriculum but the fact that who is running them. The government would do well to check their finances and the source of these finances. It would help a lot.

 

[XYON]

Shabaz Sharif + Nawaz Sharif + Ranasanaullah are the chief patrons of extremists groups in Punjab. For them a few meagre votes from these bearded religious swines are more important than the innocent killed in their savage attacks.

For just this once, I have to agree with Rehman Malik!