Corps commanders pointed to governance in entire country: Sindh govt

KARACHI: The Sindh government says the recent corps commanders meeting pointed to governance issues in the whole country, not in Sindh. It said the province is making satisfactory progress on the implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP) to counter terrorism.
Also, a commission constituted by Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah to investigate the report of director general of Sindh Rangers that around Rs240 billion are generated annually as black money in Karachi under a vicious circle to finance terrorism, has found no evidence to support this claim of massive generation of finances through criminal activities. This was disclosed by Sindh Senior Minister for Information Nisar Ahmed Khuhro on Friday at a press conference as he was giving reaction on behalf of the provincial government to the statement of a federal minister regarding the recent controversy surrounding the corps commanders meeting hitting out at the government for non-implementation of NAP.
The provincial minister said Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions (Safron) Abdul Qadir Baloch had given an irresponsible statement while asserting that the statement given after recent Crops Commanders meeting had been issued particularly due to bad governance in Sindh. While in this regard, the federal minister in his statement also pointed out at generation of Rs240 billion corruption money in the province annually as evidence to the bad governance in Sindh.
Khuhro said the statement issued after the Corps Commanders meeting should be concerning the governance in the entire country as it didn’t confined to governance issues in a particular province. The senior minister said he wanted to remind the federal minister regarding his statement that a commission had been duly constituted by Sindh CM under Justice (R) Ghulam Sarwar Korai to probe the assertions regarding annual generation of Rs240 billion black money to fund terror activities in the city. He said the commission had given chance to the concerned quarters to present evidences before it to support the claim regarding claim of massive availability of ill-gotten money so that the commission could proceed with its investigation to find out truth behind such reports. He said nobody had appeared before the commission to present evidences to support such claims regarding massive creation of illegal money so the commission in its findings negated the assertions.
The provincial minister drew attention to the recent statement of a former auditor general who had hinted at corrupt practices being carried out in the federal institutions to the tune of Rs180 billion. “If you talk about us then we would surely talk about you and this matter would get prolonged,” Khuhro said.
He said the federal minister while giving such an irresponsible statement should keep in mind the services and efforts of the Sindh government to implement the NAP in letter and spirit since December, 2014. He said that under the same drive of the Sindh government, the provincial annual budget for law and order had been increased from Rs20 billion to Rs60 billion.
He said that Sindh had seen nine meetings of provincial apex committee combining political, security and military leadership to oversee and review implementation of the NAP in the province. He said that since NAP came into force, Sindh had seen execution of 18 out total 458 condemned prisoners languishing in different jails of the province. Out of the rest of condemned prisoners, review petitions of 396 had been pending with the Sindh High Court, appeal of one such prisoners had been pending with Federal Shariat Court, while 53 such appeals were pending with the Supreme Court.
He said the sub-committee under provincial apex committee had scrutinised 85 high-profile terrorism cases of the province out of which it had recommended 74 to be sent to military trial courts to be formed in the province for speedy disposal of such cases under the NAP. He said the Interior Ministry had approved total 11 out of these 74 recommended terrorism cases for their adjudication in new proposed military trial courts.
He said that under the NAP, some 61 banned outfits had been identified operating in the province and 8,077 criminals and terrorists had been arrested while 700 such militants and criminals were killed by law-enforcement agencies including 167 activists belonging to al-Qaeda and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and 186 belonging to Lyari gang war.
Khuhro said that during this period Sindh also witnessed registration of some 1,578 criminal cases against those delivering hate speeches and fanning sectarianism while 870 accused persons related to these cases had been arrested.