ISLAMABAD: After two decades of battling the menace of sectarianism and religious-based violence, the country is now looking to bring all provinces and stakeholders on board to develop a national counter-extremism policy.
A steering committee established recently to work on formulating the National Counter Extremism Policy (NCEP) met for the first time on Wednesday with Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed in the chair.
In a statement issued in conjunction with the meeting, the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) said that the committee had begun preparing a draft policy on countering extremism. The committee will meet provincial chief secretaries, inspectors general of police and home secretaries in the coming week to share recommendations and the first consolidated draft should be ready by early November.
The steering committee was mandated to evaluate recommendations received from stakeholders at the National Counter Extremism workshop held in July.
Senator Mushahid said in the statement that it was a step towards consolidating the peace marked by a visible decline in incidents of terrorism since 2015. He commended the timely formation of the committee and stressed that the NCEP would be formulated under the framework of the legal order and would recognise the supremacy of the Constitution.
At the meeting on Wednesday, the steering committee expressed its resolve to build on the contributions received through a long deliberative process which has involved inputs from the political leadership, religious leaders and scholars, academics, media, civil society organisations and the civil and military bureaucracy. It recognised the importance of contextualising the problem, causes, sources and perspectives regarding extremism, peculiar to each region, as a prerequisite for an implementable policy.
The committee set forth a road map for the future and hoped to come up with the first policy draft by early November. It agreed on certain policy themes, including the idea of national security, building community resilience, reviving culture, educational reform, media engagement, rehabilitation and reintegration, enabling environment, and a robust implementation strategy to ensure that the efforts would come to fruition. The steering committee is to meet each week to ensure timely completion of the task.
In June, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that the country had faced losses of at least $118 billion in its ongoing war on terror. The number of lives lost is reportedly over 80,000. The move to formulate the NCEP would plug apparent lacunae in the National Action Plan which has, so far, focused on security and counterterrorism perspectives to curb sectarianism and violence in the country.
This is the second national-level committee Senator Mushahid heads. He is also chairman of the parliamentary committee on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.http://www.dawn.com/news/1291114/national-counter-extremism-policy-on-the-cards
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