A central meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNs) has begun in parliament, with senior political and military leaders present, including Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Army Staff General Asim Munir and other officials.
The meeting also attends provincial leaders, including Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, cm Sindh Murad Ali Shah, Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, who represented his province in the absence of PTI members.
Governors and IGPs from all four provinces are also in participation.
However, GDP manager Sardar Akhtar Mengal was invited but did not attend the meeting.
The opposition, Pakistan Tehreek-E-Insaf (PTI), had previously announced his participation in the committee’s considerations, but changed his decision late Monday night and linked their participation in the session to their meeting with the party’s founder.
When he spoke at a press conference on the information cell for the Civil Secretariat in Peshawar, PTI -Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram had said that PTI would attend the meeting because it was related to national security.
Akram said terrorist incidents rose in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and police fought terrorist attacks. He added that if the federal government thought of an operation against terrorists, it should first bring the matter to parliament.
“Terrorism can be fought if the nation stands with the government and the institutions. When terrorists know that the nation is united, they cannot attack,” he said, adding, “If an operation against terrorists does not receive public support, PTI will not support it.”
High -level security meeting convened in parliament comes after last week’s attack by the forbidden Balochistan Liberation Army (among other things) militants.
The militants targeted train tracks and held over 440 passengers hostage in a day-long resistance with security forces in a remote mountain pass in the Bolan district.
The military successfully cleared the train and saved the hostages and reported the killing of 33 attackers during surgery.
Before the rescue mission, the terrorists had killed 26 passengers. In addition, four security staff lost their lives during surgery to free the hostages.
