Pak anti-terrorism laws grossly inadequate to meet menace: Editorial

Lahore, June 15(ANI): The Pakistan government has been boasting about its seriousness to deal with terrorism on every possible national and international stage, however an editorial in a leading Pakistan newspaper has said that the anti-terrorism law framework is grossly inadequate.

According to the Dawn, the lapse of anti-terror law has put a big question mark over the legality of a large number of cases pending before anti-terrorism courts.

"It is axiomatic: a counter-insurgency will not succeed and counter-terrorism measures will not achieve much success unless and until the civilian arm of the state is actively participating in the process," the editorial said.

"Yet, it has emerged that for some inexplicable reason the federal government has allowed an ordinance amending the Anti Terrorism Act, 1997 to lapse without moving parliament."

"It seems the government is content with limiting its role in the counter-insurgency to that of a cheerleader of the security forces, standing on the sidelines while others do all the heavy lifting," it added.

It also said that overhauling the framework would require a long process, but stressed that the best course of action may be to start afresh.

"Since the ordinance amending the ATA 1997 will have to become an act of parliament in order to achieve permanence, why not have parliament draw up a comprehensive new anti-terrorism framework that deals adequately with 21st-century challenges of militancy and terrorism?" the editorial said.

According to legal analysts, the lapse of the ordinance has deprived the government of important powers under which it has been interrogating the arrested terror suspects and taking action against banned extremist organisations. (ANI)