ISLAMABAD: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Tuesday arrived at the Parliament House to brief the senators on the national security in an in-camera session of the Committee of the Whole House.
Director General Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Naveed Mukhtar, Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Maj Gen Sahir Shamshad Mirza and Director General Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Maj General Asif Ghafoor are accompanying the army chief.
Gen Bajwa is briefing the house on his recent visits to Afghanistan, Iran and other security issues confronting the country.
The in-camera session of the Senate committee is underway with Chairman of the Senate Mian Raza Rabbani in the chair.
DG ISI Naveed Mukhtar will brief the media on the in-camera session after it concludes.
DGMO briefs Senate
Quoting sources ARY News reported, the DGMO told the Senate that military courts had so far decided 274 cases and handed down capital punishment to 161 culprits. Out of which, 56 have been sent to the gallows.
He said military courts ceased to work after the expiry of their tenure on Jan 7. Later on March 28, this year, military courts were revived.
Gen Mirza informed that after Gen Bajwa became the army chief, 160 fresh cases were sent to military courts for trial, out of which 33 had been decided. Eight militants were condemned to death and subsequently executed, whereas 25 were handed down life sentences.
Operation Radd-ul-Fassad
The DGMO told the senators that since the launch of the Operation Radd-ul-Fassad, 1249 intelligence-based operations (IBOs) and combing operations were conducted in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Fata with 1410 in Balochistan and 2015 in Sindh province.
He said seven major operations were carried out in Punjab, 29 in Balochistan, 2 in Sindh, 31 in KP and Fata. A total of 69 major operations were carried out under the Operation Radd-ul-Fassad, he added.
During these operations, 19993 arms were seized with 2751 in Punjab, 2332 in Balochistan, 1046 in Sindh, 13864 in KP and Fata.
A day earlier, Chairman Raza Rabbani informed the house about Gen Bajwa’s briefing to the senators on internal and external security situation.
He said he was informed by the GHQ that Director General Military Operations Major General Sahir Shamshad Mirza will accompany the army chief in the Senate briefing.
The Committee of the Whole House was constituted to ‘prepare policy guidelines in the light of emerging regional realities and the role of the United States’, according to a notification issued earlier in this regard.
Later in the day, the Senate will also take up the 24th Amendment Bill that will pave the way for fresh delimitation of constituencies on the basis of provisional results of the recently held population census.
On Dec 15, in a significant breakthrough, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi succeeded in convincing the opposition PPP in the Senate to vote for the amendment to avert the threat of delay in the next general elections scheduled in August next year.
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