Condemning the militants’ attack on jail in DI Khan in the strongest words, Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, the leader of Pakistan Awami Tehreek, has described it as one of the worst incidents in the country’s history. He said that the incident had left a number of questions for the federal and provincial governments and law enforcement agencies. He said that endemic trend of jail crashes and freeing the terrorists exposed the performance of law enforcement agencies. He said that such incidents served to highlight the internal hollowness and poor state of law and order situation.

Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri expressed these views while addressing a joint meeting of executive council of Pakistan Awami Tehreek and Minhaj-ul-Quran International in Lahore today. He said that those who had made a state within a state would have to be dealt with an iron hand, adding that law enforcement agencies needed to come up with out of box solutions and solid planning to stop recurrence of such incidents.

Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri said that the usual practice of suspending a few officers and constituting committees would not solve our problems, adding that in order to eradicate terrorism, militancy and extremism, all such reasons would have to be explored that fuelled terrorism. He said that law and order situation was deteriorating in other cities after Quetta, Karachi and Gilgit. He said that terrorists got so emboldened that they were freely targeting the innocent citizens with abandon. He said that PAT and MQI condemned such atrocious conduct and attitude that had eaten into vitals of the country’s law and order.

Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri said that continuity of target killing and terrorist incidents was a blot on the face of the country, urging that national unity would have to be fostered to fight the forces of darkness. He said that those who resorted to killing spree in the name of ethnicity and language were the worst enemy of the nation who deserved to be brought to justice and held accountable for their actions. He said that deteriorating law and order had adverse effect on the economy with the result that the common man was getting bogged down in the abyss of hyper-inflation, dearness, and unemployment. He said that situation had worsened to such an extent that the institutions seemed to be in a confrontational mode and the personalities were stronger than institutions.

Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri said that situation remained dismal even during the holy month of Ramadan with no let-up in violence, inflation and target killing. He said that the future of the masses had been mortgaged while 2 per cent of the ruling elite was making merry at the cost of remaining 98 per cent. He said that current exploitative system was instrumental in establishment of a powerless parliament and that this was a killer system. He asked the nation to struggle to send this system packing.