'PPP proposes one-year extension in military courts'

ISLAMABAD: Reinforcing his party’s support to the army, former president and co-chairman Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Asif Ali Zardari says the PPP has suggested a year-long extension for the term of military courts, along with some ‘suggestions’, ARY News reported.

Addressing a crowded press briefing here, Zardari said PPP had mooted some suggestions for the military courts, however, he refrained them from disclosing before the media-men.

Taking exception to the government, he said government lack money to implement the National Action Plan on counter-terrorism. “If NAP has failed, we will strengthen it with the help of our friends,” he mentioned.

He appealed the chief justice of Pakistan to nominate judges for the military courts. “We haven’t seen a government that operate without a foreign minister”, he lamented.

He underlined that Rangers powers in Sindh were different from those in other provinces of the country.

Mr. Zardari said PPP had always been opened to dialogues – be it the government or the military. The former president said Karachi was now one of the biggest Pakhtun cities.

Military courts mandate in Pakistan expired on January 7 this year with government still to make a decision whether to revive it with an extended tenure.

The military courts were set up by parliament in early 2015 in response to an attack by Pakistani Taliban fighters on a military-run school that killed 134 children.

A total of 275 cases were referred to the military courts and 12 convicts executed over two years, the interior ministry had said in a statement. The tribunals sentenced 161 people to death and handed jail terms, mostly life sentences, to 116 people.