PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Monday condemned the recent attack on the Agriculture Training Institute (ATI) in the city and extended sympathies to the families of the martyrs and the injured. The lawmakers called for investigation into the gory incident, which has raised some questions. Nighat Orakzai of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) said that the provincial police chief and other officials told the media that the terrorists were three in number, but Chief Minister Pervez Khattak said they were four of whom three were killed and one was injured. She said a student of the institute had overpowered one terrorist and locked him in a room after snatching his gun. The lawmaker said the terrorist, who was caught alive, was later killed. She questioned his killing as he could have helped identify the masterminds of the attack and wondered whether he was killed to remove evidence. Sardar Hussain Babak and Syed Jaffar Shah of the Awami National Party (ANP) also supported the demand for investigation and said for how long the people would suffer and such incidents would be merely condemned. They said the issue was very serious and it should be probed. The ANP lawmakers questioned the non-implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP) and said it should be made public whether the federal or provincial government was responsible for the lapse. Sardar Hussain Babak said whenever a terror attack occurred questions were asked as to who were the perpetrators and from where they had come. He said this raised questioning about the role of the state institutions. He said the state was required to protect life and property of the people, but unfortunately the national institutions had failed to do so. The ANP lawmaker said dramas were being staged as banned organisations were allowed to enter politics in the name of religion and scripts were being written to blackmail governments while institutions played the role of mediators. He said the political forces should forge unity to prevent blackmailing in the name of religion. Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N)’s parliamentary leader Sardar Aurangzeb Nalotha and Qaumi Watan Party (QWP)’s parliamentary leader Sikandar Sherpao also supported the call for investigation into the recent terrorist attack to fix the responsibility. They said that though the sacrifices of the law-enforcement agencies couldn’t be ignored, one may well ask as to why NAP was not being implemented and how terrorists reached targets despite snap checking. Calling for developing consensus to come up with ways to defeat the mindset of terror forces, they said it should be probed why the terrorist who was caught alive was killed. Mufti Janan of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) and PPP’s Fakhre Azam also called for unity among different stakeholders to foil the nefarious designs of the enemy. They said the war against terrorism cannot be won without the support of the entire society, adding the state institutions should put heads together to know the actual factors behind the increase in terror attacks in the winter. Fakhre Azam also demanded that the federal government should increase the funds for fighting the war against terrorism. Senior Minister Inayatullah and Law Minister Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi condemned the incident and lauded the quick response and bravery of the police and Army jawans. They said the killing of the terrorist who was arrested would be probed if it was true. The House also unanimously adopted a resolution calling for steps to stop the arrests and deportation of Pakistanis working in Saudi Arabia. Moved by Sahibzada Sanaullah of the PPP, the resolution read that a large number of Pakistanis were earning their livelihood in Saudi Arabia, but the Saudi government had arrested them. The resolution said the federal government should take up the matter with the Saudi Arabian government through diplomatic channels to get the Pakistani migrant workers released and also ensure them job protection. Speaker Asad Qaiser ruled that the matter of Agricultural Training Institute and other terrorist incidents be discussed in detail through an adjournment motion. He adjourned the session till December 6.
