As the national leadership huddled for chalking out a new anti-terror policy, Army Chief Gen Asim Munir set the tone by declaring that Pakistan should buckle up its governance and pose itself as a hard state to confront the rising fissures of terrorism. He lamented how long the people and the armed forces will continue to render sacrifices like a soft state. He also made it categorically clear that national security takes precedence over all motives of association and allegiance, and it's high time to rise above partisanship to steer the country out of the quagmire of lawlessness and degeneration.
The in-camera meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, however, was a divisive show as almost all of the opposition stalwarts opted to stay away. Prominent among them were Akhtar Mengal, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, Allama Nasir Abbas, Sahibzada Hamid Raza as well as Salman Akram Raja of PTI, who castigated the government for being non-serious in taking the opposition along in wider national interest. Their consensual stance was that the incarcerated former PM, Imran Khan, should have been on board in forging a broader consensus. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi was also conspicuous by his absence, whereas K-P CM Ali Amin Gandapur was present in the brain-storming session in his official and political capacity.
Though not much transpired officially as to what would be the new salient features of the nation's response to the rising tide of terrorism, the parliamentary moot stressed the need for a "national consensus to repel terrorism, emphasising strategic and unified political commitment to confront this menace with the full might of the state". It is quite worrisome that the special session went the political way and was wayward in essence. Both the ruling clique and the opposition are squarely to be blamed for holding their petty briefs, and not rising to the occasion of statesmanship. It is painstaking to learn that terror outfits are regrouping and have come up with a united front to further their vested agenda, as the political rejoinder was found to be in the woods.
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