Act on LET and JEM, top Pak cop had told Sharif

NEWDELHI: More than three years before former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif questioned the policy of using Pakistan-based militants for assaults on India, the top cop who probed the Mumbai attacks had urged the PML-N government to take action against the Lashkar-e-taiba and Jaish-e-mohammed in Punjab province.

Tariq Khosa, the former head of the Federal Investigation Agency and one of Pakistan’s most respected police officials, was asked by the PML-N government to prepare a counter-terrorism action plan in the aftermath of the Taliban massacre at an army-run school in Peshawar on December 16, 2014.

The “national counter-terrorism strategy” that Khosa presented to a working group, which included the then interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, on December 21, 2014, formed the basis of discussions that resulted in the National Action Plan on terror that was approved by the government later the same month.

In his book,

Khosa provides details of the counter-terrorism strategy, including the need for a crackdown on the LET, JEM and other groups.

“The real heartland of militancy is in the Punjab province. Action against banned outfits like Lashkar-eJhangvi, Jaish-e-mohammed, Lashkar-e-taiba, and the so-called Punjabi Taliban must be taken by the Punjab government,” says the strategy, included in full as an appendix in Khosa’s book.

THE REAL HEARTLAND OF MILITANCY IS IN THE PUNJAB PROVINCE, KHOSA HAD SAID