SUKKUR: Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah said on Monday there were nurseries of terrorism in Punjab which were also involved in attacks inside Sindh.

He called for action against such ‘nurseries’ and said the Sindh government was trying to fight the menace with limited resources and it needed the federal government’s cooperation to finish it off.

Mr Shah said at a press conference at the residence of PPP MNA Mir Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani in Jacobabad that terrorists were trying to misuse the name of religion to weaken the country.

He said that there was no doubt RAW was busy inflicting harm on the country and the Indian military was continuously violating ceasefire along the Line of Control but the federal minister for interior could not absolve himself of the responsibility by pointing finger at Indian secret agency, RAW.

The Modi government was behind incidents of terrorism in the country which were carried out through RAW as it could not see Pakistan getting prosperous. The Pakistan government should raise its voice against Indian activities, he said.

Mr Shah said that terrorism posed a serious challenge to the government although operations including Zarb-i-Azab in the tribal areas had brought down incidents of terrorism to a large extent.

He said that many ‘outsiders’ were living in Kashmore, Shikarpur, Jacobabad and Larkana and the Sindh government was trying to plug their influx. If the intelligence agencies managed to break terrorists’ networks there would be no need of carrying out expensive, large-scale operations, he said.

Answering a question, he said that if the home minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was removed after bomb explosions then Sindh home minister might also step down.

About statements of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader Dr Arif Alvi, he said that Dr Alvi was a newcomer in politics and advised him to give more time to politics. The army should do more and play its role to help arrest terrorists, their handlers and facilitators, he said.

He said that registration of cases against PPP leaders was nothing new for the party as fake cases were lodged against party leaders in the past as well and even against Benazir Bhutto but none was ever proved in courts. He said that filing cases against the PPP would pull down popularity graph of the federal government.

He said the suicide attack in Jacobabad in which many innocent lives were lost was highly condemnable and assured the killers would not get off scot-free.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2015

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