PESHAWAR: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Interim Prime Minister (PM) Justice (R) Nasirul Mulk reached Peshawar separately on Thursday for apex committee meeting.
The high-level security meeting is being conducted following the suicide attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (KP) capital which claimed the lives of 22 persons including Awami National Party’s (ANP) candidate from PK-78, Haroon Bilour.
After his arrival in the provincial capital, the COAS visited the martyred candidate’s family and extended his condolences.
Meanwhile, the premier and Interim Interior Minister Azam Khan met with KP Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra and discussed issues pertaining to the province’s law and order situation.
Earlier on July 9, the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) had briefed the Senate Committee on Interior about threats to the leaders of the political parties especially those of the ANP.
Politicians facing security threats included the former KP chief ministers and ANP’s Ameer Haider Hoti.
Earlier on July 4, NACTA Director Obaid Farooq while briefing a sub-committee of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior had said, “We have received as many as 12 threat alerts which are about leadership of political parties, including the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), and six personalities can be targeted during elections.”
The home department had directed the authorities concerned to provide security to the candidates of the PPP and ANP during their election campaigns.
Punjab chief secretary had been informed that days before he was killed in a drone attack in Afghanistan, TTP commander Mullah Fazalullah had issued directives to increase terrorist activities in Pakistan — to target the PPP and ANP during the general elections, in addition to carrying out terrorist attacks in various parts of Pakistan.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Raza Khan had said that the attack on an electoral candidate, despite the ECP’s directions to provide security, was a result of the security institutions’ negligence.
from Pakistan Today
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