Rabbani seeks collaboration of federal, provincial govts to check activities of terrorists

ISLAMABAD: Former Senate chairman Mian Raza Rabbani said that the increase in operational outreach of the insurgents, in carrying out terrorist activities throughout the country, is troubling and requires immediate attention of the federal government in collaboration with the provincial governments.

“These acts of terrorism cannot be countered only through operations by the security forces, because each set of terrorists is working on a given agenda which is related to and pertaining with, religious extremism and the regional geopolitical situation,” he said while in a statement on Monday. Rabbani said it is worrying to note that university students are being sucked in by this wave of terrorism and, are not hesitating to become suicide bombers.

He said such involvement of the youthful intelligentsia, lays bare the fact that, there is a motivational paradigm in these organizations. Rabbani said it is essential for the state to address issues like socio-political, economic, feeling of deprivation of provincial and human rights. “The apathy of the State towards its citizen, leads them to feel the State has nothing to offer them,” he said.

The former Senate chairman proposed that an alternate paradigm has to be developed, which is visible on the ground in order to counter such terrorist narratives. “It is time that all political parties, rise above petty differences to address these questions which poses a grave threat to the Federation,” he suggested. He said that Political instability is fodder for the terrorist insurgency.

Rabbani said the youthful intelligentsia gets sucked into the web of terrorism, it is more alarming, because it seems that nationalist forces as also mainstream political parties, have lost their appeal to this limited youthful intelligentsia.

As suggested earlier, the Rabbani said a parliamentary committee on national security should be formed immediately to engage with all essential stakeholders of the State, to develop and oversee the implementation of a narrative.

He said the Committee of the Whole of the Senate of Pakistan, is an ideal vehicle to be used by the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, for the furtherance of its agenda. The former Senate chairman said the State must recognize and acknowledge the internal fault lines, as also, the fast changing geopolitical situation in the region. Raza Rabbani said a complacent or taking for granted attitude by the State, will have disastrous effects and history will not forgive our generation of Pakistanis, for looking the other way, when the Federation is engulfed in the flames of terrorism.