No force in the world can stop the struggle of Kashmiris: PM Nawaz

KP Govt Offers Rs. 10(mn) Bounty For TTP's Mullah Fazlullah

Undated photo taken from video by the TTP's Umar Media propaganda wing shows chief of the banned group Mullah Fazlullah.

ISLAMABAD: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Monday announced a bounty worth Rs10 million rupees (US$100,000) for information leading to the arrest or death of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief, Mullah Fazlullah, officials said.

“The provincial government has set a bounty of Rs10 million for any information/help that can lead to the arrest or killing of TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah,” a senior official in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government told AFP, requesting anonymity.

He said that the KP government had prepared a list of 615 high profile militants and was offering a combined bounty of Rs760 million (US$7.5 million).

The official said the list also includes Mangal Bagh, chief of Lashkar-i-Islam, a Taliban-linked militant group operating in the Khyber tribal district.

Mushtaq Ghani, the provincial information minister confirmed the bounty.

Meanwhile, the country's parliament deferred voting on legislation regarding the establishment of military courts for terror-related cases until Tuesday, after the chief of a religious party objected to the contents of the national plan of action.

The bill will be presented in parliament on Tuesday for voting, after which military courts will be made legal. At present the military courts deal only with cases related to the military.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had announced the establishment of military courts for terror-related cases after a deadly Taliban attack on military-run school in Peshawar that killed more than 148 people, 134 of them children.

The prime minister also ended the country's six-year-old moratorium on the death penalty in terror cases last month in the wake of the slaughter at the school.

Seven convicted militants have been hanged since the de facto ban on capital punishment ended.
Six of those executed were found guilty of trying to assassinate the then-military dictator Musharraf in Rawalpindi in 2003 and the seventh was sentenced in connection with a 2009 attack on the army headquarters.

Officials have said they plan to hang 500 convicts in the coming weeks, drawing condemnation from international human rights campaigners.

LHC Halts Execution Of Death Row Convict

AFP FILE --

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday halted the execution of a death row convict named Faiz Ahmad.

A two-member member bench of the LHC headed by Justice Abdus Sami Khan and including Justice Sardar Tariq Masood stopped the execution in response to a petition filed by Ahmad's counsel Abdul Khaliq.

Khaliq had submitted an application in the LHC, saying his client's appeal against the death sentence was pending in the Supreme Court since 2009 and therefore his death warrant must be set aside by the court.

Earlier on Dec 24, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) had issued Ahmad's death warrant on an application filed by a superintendent of Faisalabad jail. The date for Ahmad's hanging was set for January 14.

The superintendent had stated that condemned prisoner Ahmad was awarded the death penalty in 2006 for killing Lance Naik Tariq Mahmood in Nankana Sahib.

The court halted the execution today and said the ATC must submit an application in the LHC clarifying as to why a death warrant was issued for his execution on Dec 24 when his appeal has been pending with the apex court since 2009.

So far seven convicts have been hanged since the lifting of a moratorium on death penalty by the government after the Peshawar school carnage.

On Dec 17, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had lifted the moratorium on death penalty after the attack on Peshawar's Army Public School that killed more than 140 people — including 134 school children.

The moratorium was imposed by former president Asif Ali Zardari during the tenure of the Pakistan Peoples Party government.

Nawaz Calls Parliamentary Leaders To Address Concerns On Military Courts

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. — AFP/File

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has called a meeting of parliamentary leaders at the Prime Minister House on Friday (tomorrow) to address concerns that have arisen on the matter of military courts.

The two main opposition parties, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which had earlier endorsed the move, have since been having second thoughts to the commitments they had made during the December 24 meeting of parliamentary parties and key stakeholders, including the military's top brass, who were present there.

Earlier, PPP stalwart and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Aitzaz Ahsan had categorically stated that he had opposed the idea of amending the constitution for establishing military courts which were mentioned in the document made public after the meeting.


However, today, Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Shah refuted that the establishment of military courts was discussed during the Dec 24 meeting.

Shah said that during the meeting, establishment of special courts did come into discussion but not military courts. The political parties were told that special courts would try terrorists and organisations where the terrorists were getting their funding from, he added.

The opposition leader said that the meeting had agreed to form a legal team to keep an eye on the process of the formation and workings of these special courts.

Shah however said that consensus has now been developed on carrying out amendments in the Army Act to pave way for creating special courts.


At present, the army act limits the military’s jurisdiction over civilians to specific cases.

The government’s legal advisers are weighing the option of amending Article 8 (1) and Article 212-A and B of the constitution in order to establish military courts in the country, officials privy to discussions on the issue had told Dawn earlier.

Article 8 is titled ‘Laws inconsistent with or in derogation of Fundamental Rights to be void’, while Article 212 deals with administrative courts and tribunals.

If the amendments are carried out, changes will be made accordingly in the Army Act 1952 to set up special trial courts to try terror suspects. Under the proposed constitutional amendment, the military courts will cease to function after a period of two years.

PM finalises strategy to strengthen National Counter Terrorism Plan

PM Nawaz Shaif

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday finalized a strategy to introduce separate working groups at the federal level as well, which would include federal ministers, DG ISI, DG IB and senior officials of other institutions, to further strengthen the National Counter Terrorism Plan.

According to sources, the Interior Ministry would oversee the implementation of all these separate working groups which would focus on the following: Prevent propagation of banned outfits, purging of various armed gangs, thwart dissemination of zealous literature, controlling the Afghan refugee situation, reformation of Madressahs, prevent any access to social media by terrorists, monitoring of Karachi Operation, and eradicate all traces of terrorism in Punjab and the rest of Pakistan.

Furthermore, the following working groups were made under separate heads to oversee the implementation of: Development reforms in FATA as well as process of returning back IDPs under Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mehtab Khan Abbasi, restriction of terrorists’ financing under Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, curbing of media coverage for terrorists under Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid, and criminal reforms under the Law Minister.

Facilitator' of Taliban school attack killed in Pakistan

Pak Army Enter Into Chief Minister House While APC

Pakistani security forces have killed a Taliban commander who allegedly facilitated the Peshawar school massacre, which left 150 people dead in the country's worst ever terror attack, officials said Friday.
Named only as "Saddam", the militant was killed Thursday night in a gunfight with security forces in the restive Khyber tribal area, which borders the northwestern city of Peshawar where last week's horrific attack took place.
"Commander Saddam was a dreaded terrorist, who was killed in an exchange of fire with the security forces in Jamrud town of Khyber tribal region," top local administration official Shahab Ali Shah told a press conference in Peshawar.
"Six of his accomplices were injured and arrested."
He added that Saddam is believed to have facilitated the school attack, although the extent or capacity of his alleged involvement was not yet known.
"Authorities are currently interrogating the injured terrorists," Shah said.

Saddam and his accomplices had been involved in several recent attacks on security forces that had resulted in heavy casualties, Shah said.
The military said it killed 23 militants in aerial strikes in the troubled northwest near the Afghan border on Friday evening.
"In very effective and precise aerial strikes in North Waziristan this evening, 23 terrorists including some important commanders were killed," the military said in a statement.
"A huge underground ammunition dump and tunnel system have been destroyed," it added.

The Taliban and other militants have taken refuge in Khyber from a major army offensive launched in June in North Waziristan, another restive tribal area on the Afghan border that has been a hub for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants since the early 2000s.
Meanwhile, a US drone strike on a Taliban compound in North Waziristan killed at least four militants on Friday, officials said, the second such incident in a week.
Another drone strike in North Waziristan on December 20 killed at least five militants, officials said.
The area is generally off-limits to journalists, making it difficult to independently verify the number and identity of the dead.
Washington pressed Islamabad for years to wipe out militant sanctuaries in North Waziristan, which have been used to launch attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani military says it has killed more than 1,700 militants so far in its heavy offensive in the tribal zone, with 126 soldiers having lost their lives.
Pakistan has ramped up its anti-terror strategy in the wake of the December 16 slaughter at an army-run school in Peshawar, where 134 children were among the victims gunned down by heavily-armed Taliban militants.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has announced the establishment of military courts for terror-related cases in order to accelerate trials, and he has also lifted a six-year moratorium on the death penalty, reinstating it for terrorism-related cases.
Officials said Monday that Pakistan plans to execute around 500 militants in the coming weeks.