Political challenges causing hindrance in NAP implementation: Asim Bajwa

MOSCOW (Webdesk) - Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa has said that some parts of the National Action Plan have already been initiated while other aspects require more time due to political challenges. In an interview with Russian magazine, the DG ISPR said Pakistan’s new anti-terrorism National Action Plan is proving effective in cutting the funding of terrorist groups operating in the country. “One of the biggest achievements of the plan were the physical operations in FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas], intelligence-based operations and choking the funding of terrorist groups,” Bajwa said. He mentioned the May bus attack in Safoora Goth, as one of the recent incidents indicating the increasing activity of radicalized youth. “In regards to Safoora Goth tragedy, there was an educated youth involved,” Bajwa said, stressing that it does not mean that the entire youth of Pakistan is radicalized or is involved in extremism. “We started with some pilot projects for the deradicalization program that now has extended to the national level,” Bajwa said. Pakistan stepped up anti-terrorism efforts after Tehreek-e-Taliban gunmen killed more than 150 people, most of them student, at Army Public School in Peshawar in December 2014. Days later, the political and military leadership sat together and devised the National Action Plan. The 17-point plan includes cutting financial aid to terrorists and preventing banned organisations from operating with new names, formation of special anti-terrorism force, regularisation of religious seminaries known as madrassas, constitutional ammendments, banning space for terrorists in electronic and print media, destroying their communication systems, and the repatriation of Afghan refugees.