Meeting to review National Action Plan progress in Punjab today

LAHORE: The federal government has scheduled a National Action Plan Coordination Committee meeting on Friday (today) at 2:30pm.

The meeting will take place at the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) headquarters in Islamabad, chaired by the Federal Minister for Interior.

According to sources, the meeting will address the implementation of National Action Plan and discuss achievements thus far.

As per documents available with The News, in Punjab, during 2023, a total of 220 operations were conducted against militant gangs, resulting in 194 cases being registered against terrorist outfits. Actions were taken against 12 proclaimed offenders, and 323 challans were submitted. Notably, 111 cases led to convictions.

The documents highlight that 2,129 intelligence-based operations (IBOs) were carried out. Of these, 2,039 IBOs were conducted by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD), and 90 operations were jointly executed by various law enforcement agencies (LEAs). More than 250 FIRs were registered against terrorists, with over 2,000 suspects interrogated and 246 cases filed. Additionally, 310 suspects were apprehended. Further details reveal effective actions taken against militant or terrorist organisations. A total of 2,422 top, middle, and lower-tier leaders were either killed, arrested, or detained in IBOs. According to sources, 159 terrorists belonged to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), 24 to Al-Qaida, 47 to Daish, 41 to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ)/Sipah-I-Sahaba/Pakistan (SSP), three to ASWJ/SSP, and 23 to other organisations.

The documents report that the Punjab-based LeJ has been nearly eradicated, with the entire leadership eliminated in IBOs (including Malik Ishaq) or arrested. Moreover, local facilitators were not found during the last eight blasts in the last four years in Lahore, committed by TTP from Afghanistan.

It was disclosed that all terrorism cases were detected, with the LEAs recovering 162.46 kgs of explosive material, four suicide jackets, 39 grenades, 293 detonators, seven Kalashnikovs, one rocket, and two launchers from terrorists in Punjab.

The documents assert that there is no “no-go” area from a terrorism perspective. It has been ensured that all seminaries are fully accessible for search and the arrest of wanted accused.

The documents also state that all agencies freely conduct counter-terrorism operations throughout Punjab.

For the implementation of National Action Plan, the names of 1,232 individuals have been included in the list of Fourth Schedulers. For monitoring and surveillance purposes, approximately 5,325 names were added to the watchlist.