Pakistani authorities are set to launch an anti-terror campaign in the Punjab province — the stronghold of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Pakistani authorities are set to launch an anti-terror campaign in the Punjab province — the stronghold of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Officials said the operation will be aimed at purging the “no-go areas” — allegedly established by the banned outfits — at Punjab’s border with the smaller provinces.
Paramilitary Rangers will be engaged for a limited role to assist the law-enforcing agencies at the provincial boundaries with Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh.
The Frontier Corps and Rangers will coordinate the efforts against anti- state elements at the borderlines, government officials said.
The members of outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Al Qaeda and criminal gangs have created no-go areas at the border of Punjab with the three provinces, virtually converting the same into their safe havens.
“Frontier Corps has already launched intelligence-based ‘chase operations’ to hunt the banned outfits’ activists and criminal gangs in some areas of Balochistan, connecting the volatile province with the Pun jab. The areas in which the operations took place include Zamurdan, Sori, Rekho, Geyandari and Jathro,” said an official.
The business of kidnapping for ransom is on the rise and the banned organisations operating from no-go areas have major part in this high crime while they mostly operate at Punjab border with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
In two intelligence-based chase operations in the first week of February, Frontier Corps killed four banned outfits’ members at the Punjab border, who had kidnapped employees of the Balochistan government.
The security forces freed the kidnapped employees who the fleeing abductors had left behind while crossing into the Punjab.
