PM Imran, COAS Bajwa discuss security, army affairs

Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Thursday called on Prime Minister Imran Khan to discuss the internal and external challenges to the country.

According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the two discussed “professional matters pertaining to Pakistan Army, internal and external security situation”.

The premier, while referring to “recent efforts to stoke violence in Pakistan”, expressed the resolve that the entire nation was united “against the cowardly acts of the enemy”, the PMO said through a tweet.

He also paid tribute to personnel from the Pakistan Army, Frontier Corps (FC) and law enforcement agencies “who sacrificed their lives for the defence of the motherland”.

The meeting comes a day after Gen Bajwa vowed to take terrorists and their facilitators to the task.

During a visit to Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar on Wednesday to inquire after the health of those injured in Tuesday’s explosion at a seminary in the city, the army chief credited the nation for “rejecting the narrative of the militants” by showing exemplary unity, adding that the masses stood united today with the same enthusiasm and resolve.

Referring to the Army Public School attack of December 2014, the army chief said the “enemy” had targeted innocent children then, and had done so again, the day marking the “black day” when India occupied Kashmir.

General Bajwa had said that a large number of Afghan refugee children were among those injured and killed in the madrassa attack and had vowed that the military would not rest until they had eliminated all terrorists and their facilitators from Pakistan.

He had said that he went to the hospital to share in the grief of families, students and teachers of the seminary, and to express his solidarity with them.