Shehbaz Sharif blames Imran Khan for rise of terror incidents in Pak: Report

Pakistan prime minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday slammed the country's former government - led by Imran Khan - for its failure to implement the National Action Plan (NAP) against terrorism. Slamming Khan, the Pakistani prime minister - during a meeting - reportedly referred to the rise in terrorism-related incidents during the last four years, against the backdrop of a 56 percent surge in the number of terror attacks in 2021.

“We will continue our struggle till the complete eradication of terrorism. We will not compromise on Pakistan’s security and defence," the Pakistan prime minister was quoted as saying by local daily The Express Tribune. Sharif also assured that the “role of provinces in the action plan will be restored” as it “did not exist in the last four years”, news agency ANI reported.

After an attack on an army public school in 2014 that had killed 149 people, including at least 132 children, a national consensus was evolved to come down hard on the terrorists through a concerted national effort in Pakistan. In view of this, a 20-point NAP for countering terrorism and extremism was chalked out by the interior ministry. The NAP had a list of specifics for the counter-terrorism drive in the country - those that Sharif alleged were ignored by Imran Khan.

Terrorists have carried out 294 attacks, killing 388 people and wounding 606 in 2021, reported ANI citing a report by Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS). It further reported that Balochistan was the most turbulent province in 2021 where 170 deaths were recorded in 103 terrorist attacks. While Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa witnessed 162 attacks that killed 180 people, 15 terrorist attacks were recorded in Sindh that left 23 dead. In Punjab, 10 terrorist attacks killed at least 10 people in 2021 as per the data.

This comes as global watchdog FATF (Financial Action Task Force) is set to conduct an onsite visit to see if steps taken by Islamabad to curb terror financing are “sustainable and irreversible”. Last week, the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog did not immediately remove Pakistan from its ‘grey list’. “Pakistan is not being removed from the grey list today. It will be removed if the onsite visit finds its actions are sustainable,” FATF president Marcus Pleyer had said. Pleyer further said an onsite inspection would be done before October.

Pakistan was placed in the grey list - the list of countries under increased monitoring - in June 2018.

(With inputs from ANI)