PM wants plan made to avert any ‘invasion’of capital

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Friday urged the country’s civil and military leadership to formulate a strategy to avert the repeat of PTI’s invasion of Islamabad aimed at sabotaging the hard-earned peace and macroeconomic stability.

“Pakistan’s image has been tarnished all over. This has been the third to fourth invasion against the federal capital during the past eight months by the PTI. There was no concept of such unholy acts and designs before 2014. It started in 2014 with the 126-day sit-in that damaged the economy and country’s image,” he said while chairing a high-level meeting on the law & order situation in the country.

Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Ahad Khan Cheema, Azam Nazir Tarar, Advisor to the Prime Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz and Punjab Senior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb and Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Asim Munir attended the meeting.

Calling PTI “Tehreek-e-Takhreeb” (Insurgency Movement), the prime minister censured its leadership for running over the federal capital repeatedly to sabotage the hard-earned peace, macroeconomic stability and revival of hefty foreign capital investments in the country.

“The country’s economy again witnessed a major blow as according to a guarded estimate, such protests cause Rs190 billion per day loss to the national economy. The impact on exports, imports, production, services, private businesses and public and private offices is huge,” Shehbaz said.

He reiterated that a mob from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) invaded the federal capital with all the public resources of KP government and unleashed gunshots on the law-enforcement agencies, injured people and damaged the infrastructure.

“If the country enemies are hell-bent on sabotaging the country’s peace and prosperity, are we going to lie down like a lame duck and should we allow them to run over everything? This should be the last thing that we should have in our remotest imagination. We should make all out efforts to quash such inimical designs intended to harm the nation, as these opportunities do not come again,” the prime minister said.

The PTI-led regime in KP, he said, had no regard for the declining inflation from 32% to below 7%, policy rate from 22%-15% and friendly nations interested in investing in Pakistan as the party just wanted to roll back everything.

“The federal government’s senior leadership, COAS and his entire team are present here. Time and tide wait for nobody. It’s not a political party but a saboteurs and miscreants’ group that should be taken to the task as per the law.

“It’s our national duty to expose them and, if not, history will judge us in a very bad light and posterity will not forgive us,” the prime minister said.

Calling KP a “beautiful” province with its brave, strong and patriotic people, he called for a focus on the development initiatives for them.

He said the recent killings in Parachinar city of KP was a clandestine move to damage the country’s peace, but it was painful to see the KP government’s indifference to the situation.

He noted that violence by the PTI miscreants in Islamabad resulted in the martyrdom of a police and four Rangers personnel with dozens of police officers and constables injured.

The prime minister repeated that the due to the PTI’s 126-day sit-in in 2014, the Chinese president’s visit was deferred and was rescheduled seven months later in April 2015, following myriads of efforts. He also recalled the PTI’s attempts to sabotage the SCO conference hosted by Islamabad and to undermine the Pakistan-Saudi brotherly relations through a baseless propaganda by the party leadership.

He said the PTI’s latest protest failed to impact the Belarusian president’s visit and the foreign dignitary successfully completed his three-day visit.

Mentioning his participation in the funeral prayers of Rangers’ personnel at the GHQ, he thanked Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, interior secretary, IGP Islamabad, LEAs and chief ministers of Sindh and Punjab for their support to the federal government to cope with violence.

Highlighting the government’s achievements on the economic front, he said the indicators were improving gradually and macroeconomic stability was being witnessed, as the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) had crossed its highest ever trading volume which was earlier achieved during Nawaz Sharif’s government.

The participants of the meeting also offered Fateha for the martyred security personnel.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif constituted a task force to identify the people creating anarchy and violence in Islamabad and take an effective action against them.

The task force will identify the armed persons and those involved in violent acts. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi will head the task force. Minister for Law Azam Nazir Tarar, Minister for Economic Affairs Ahad Khan Cheema, Minister for Information Attaullah Tarar and officials of security forces would be the task force members.

The prime minister also constituted a Federal Riots Control Force to prevent any future anarchy and violence in Islamabad. The force would be imparted highly professional training and equipped with the latest security equipment. The meeting also decided to establish a Federal Forensic Laboratory to gather evidence using the latest technology. The meeting also decided to use the latest technology for the Islamabad Safe City Project. It was also decided to strengthen the federal prosecution service and provide sufficient manpower for the purpose.