ISLAMABAD – The Senate’s Standing Committee on Interior was informed on Monday that the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) is in close coordination with intelligence agencies to establish a Joint Intelligence Directorate (JID) to counter terrorism and related activities.
The directorate will serve as a coordination platform for information exchange with a view to achieve common objective to counter terrorism and allied activities in the country, NACTA Coordinator Ahsan Ghani informed the committee, chaired by Senator Rehman Malik. He said that people were being hired for the directorate whichwill consist of desks where officers of different departments andintelligence agencies will be deployed.
Senators Shahi Syed, Muhammad Javed Abbasi, Muhammad Ali Khan Saif and Syed Shibli Faraz, Interior additional secretary and other officials attended the meeting, which discussed NACTA amendment bill, 2016 in detail. The bill provided thestructure of the proposed National Authority, which would be governed bya board of governors with the prime ministeracting as its chairman andthe rest of the members comprising of federal and provincial ministers, chiefs of intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
It was informed that according to the existing provision, itshould meet whenever it is mandatory, at least once ayear. However, the existing provision states that the board of governorsmust meet every quarter. Moreover, the executive committee is theimplementing body of the NACTA. However,given regular intervals of time, there is no such provisionand mechanism for the executive committee meeting. Therefore, this act stressed that thereshould be mechanism for meeting of the executive committee atregular intervals.
The amendments introduced included amendment of section 6, Act XIX of 2013, of National Counter Terrorism Authority Act, 2013and amendment of section 8, Act XIX of 2013, of National CounterTerrorism Authority Act, 2013.Through clause (2) the word ‘each quarter of existing’ insection 6 in sub-section (4), shall be omitted, and through clause(3).Following sub-section (7) shall be added in the section 8, as “the executive committee may meet as and when required, but it shallmeet at least once in each quarter of a year.”The additional secretary informed the committee that NACTA has no objection to the said amendments.
The agenda items included for discussion on bill titled “Theprohibition of corporal punishment bill, 2016, The Islamabadcapital territory local government (amendment) bill, 2016 and brutal murder of Sardar Suran Singh, special assistant to chief ministerKhyber Pakhtunkhwa on minorities’ affairs.”
On the occasion, Rehman appreciated the Pakistan Army for conductingoperations to curb terrorism. He also emphasised on redefining the definition of terrorism. Condemning the murder of Sardar Soran Singh, he said that those involvedin the crime should be taken to chore. He directed that home affairs secretary and the inspector general of police of Pakhtunkhwa shouldbe asked to attend the next meeting.
