Politicians, media advised not to malign 21st Amendment

LAHORE
SECRETARY General PPP Punjab Tanvir Ashraf Kaira has urged a section of politicians, civil society and media to desist from making the 21st amendment as controversial in the face of a national unity against terrorism and extremism.
In a statement issued on Monday, Tanvir Kaira said the establishment of military courts and their functioning under the democratic dispensation would work within the ambit of the constitutional amendment brought in by the parliament. He said under them, chances of ‘miscarriage of justice’ would be nil.
Kaira, also former Finance Minister of Punjab, maintained that the apprehensions of critics were baseless because the parliament, free media and assertive civil society, including legal fraternity, would be watching the court proceedings as to whether these courts were meeting the demands of justice or not.
The legal obligation that the military courts will only adjudicate those cases of terrorism which will be referred by the federal government should surely alley the fears of political victimisation, he maintained.
He also reminded the critics that the country was in a state of war and had been fighting the war of its survival adding they should foster unity instead of sowing the seeds of divisions to the utter advantage of terrorists. Terrorists will be happy for serving their biddings even by default, he observed.
Tanvir Ashraf Kaira also said the critics should think of the innocent civilians, children and soldiers martyred by terrorists before indulging in confusing the nation that had got together against those who were neither Muslims, nor Pakistanis or human beings. They must be confronted as the exercise of all other options had not yielded propitious results.
He pointed out that the PPP and its leadership were quite clear in this regard right from the outset and had been urging other parties to defeat the evil on its turf as the top most priority. Their tendency to impose their ideology at gunpoint is limitless, he added.
The secretary general advised that the entire leadership of the country should focus on exterminating terrorists for the sake of the future of this generation and posterity. They pose a grave threat to the security of the country and our way of life and beyond, he added.