Five terrorists were killed in Muzaffargarh and Rajanpur districts of Dera Ghazi Khan division and more than 300 suspects were arrested by security forces in Punjab as they sped up search operations at various cities after a deadly suicide attack killed over 70 people in Allama Iqbal Park in the provincial capital.
According to South Punjab News Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) and intelligence agencies arrested 120 people from Gujranwala, 20 from Faisalabad, and 34 people from Sadiqabad, Khanpur and Liaquatpur.
The campaign against the militants has been launched on the orders of Army Chief General Raheel Sharif who chaired two high level meetings since the Lahore attack.
The Punjab law minister has said joint civil, military intelligence-based operations (IBPs) will be conducted against terrorists in the province.
“As 5,221 people were initially rounded up from different parts of Punjab out of which 5,005 have been released after verification of their documents,” Rana Sanaullah said in a press conference on Tuesday. “However, 216 suspects are still under custody for further investigation.”
About 56 IBOs were carried out by the Punjab police whereas 16 raids conducted by the counter-terrorism department, added Sanaullah
He, however, rejected the notion that terrorists have safe havens in Punjab, saying civil-military agencies have been carrying out operation across the province under the continuing National Action Plan.
“There is no no-go area in the Punjab. There are some people who are bent on giving an impression that there are terror sanctuaries in the province.”
He added, “We have geo-tagged all madrasas in the province and the provincial government knows how many students are currently studying in those madrassas.”Regarding investigations in the Lahore attack, the law minister said a JIT has been formed to probe the incident, which will be headed by the SSP CTD.
On the contrary, COAS General Raheel Sharif made it clear that the operations will not be “joint actions” as conducted in the past along with the police and provincial intelligence agencies.
The overnight operations, which the army chief is personally monitoring, were conducted by army units, paramilitary Rangers, the Inter Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence personnel.
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