organisations which resurrected under the garb of charity organisations.
He also warned against making the military courts a permanent feature as that would amount to militarising the judiciary in a society already reeling under excessive militarisation. He said that while the Parliament, the political parties and the civil society must support the extraordinary measures for fighting militants it must also keep a close watch on the strident militarisation of the civil institutions.
During the past decades the security establishment occupied the commanding heights of economy and lands and
it would be disastrous if it
was encouraged to make
further inroads in the civil
domain and take over the
role of judiciary as well, he said.
Journalist Zahid Hussain asked the mainstream political parties to mobilise their rank and file against extremist narrative so that people are mobilised at the grassroots level. Senior journalist M Ziauddin called for paradigm shift in Pakistan's security and foreign policies.
Lieutenant General (r) Talat Masood said that the war against terror has to be all-sided and should be fought on ideological, political and military levels.
Imtiaz Alam, Safma secretary-general, presented a resolution which was passed by the participants. The participants mostly consisting of leading intellectuals and journalists in addition to legislators welcomed the resolve of political and military leadership in initiating an all-out war on all fronts against the perpetrators, ideologues and abettors of terrorism in the name of religion and those fighting against the state.
They condemned killing of journalists in France by terrorists and called for greater tolerance and respect for various religions and peaceful coexistence of the followers of various faiths.
The resolution proposed operation against all those militants who have been patronised as strategic assets and some of them are still active in so-called Jehad in Kashmir and elsewhere.
It demanded enforcement of ban on surrogate bodies and renamed banned organisations. It called for effectively banning hate materials and prohibiting hate speech and ending glorification or justification of terrorism in the name of Jehad or ‘Qattal’.