Centre for Pakistan and Gulf Studies holds an in-house Steering Committee Meeting

Islamabad, April 16, 2015: The Centre for Pakistan and Gulf Studies (CPGS) organized an In-House meeting of the Steering Committee for project ‘SALAM – Sensitize, Access, Link, Act, Monitor’, which aims at innovating means to resolve radical extremism in Pakistan. The agenda of the meeting included a review of the progress on the National Action Plan (NAP) and recommendation of measures for the effective implementation of counter-terrorism efforts.

The meeting was attended by prominent religious, philosophical and legal experts and practitioners, as well as university students.

The Steering Committee recommended that for effective implementation of the National Action Plan, both short and long term strategies need to be identified. A national census must also be held at the earliest. A proper record of foreigners visiting Pakistan should be kept. It was also suggested that ex-servicemen from the armed forces ought to be inducted into the police force, or an equivalent ‘national guard’ for the security of sensitive infrastructure and government organizations.

The government must also pay serious heed to working on reforms in the judiciary, health and education sectors. Furthermore, cooperation between provincial and federal governments needs to be improved.

President CPGS, Senator Sehar Kamran (T.I.) in her concluding remarks stated that at the moment, the army is carrying the weight incountering terrorism within the country, and that the government must also step-up and assume responsibility for social, economic as well as physical rehabilitation of the internally displaced persons in order for the national counter-terrorism push to be a success. She said rehabilitation without providing basic facilities would only lead to failure. She further said policy-making forums need to be utilized for effective implementation of the National Action Plan.