Imran Khan refuses to attend APC, claims Asad Umar,

Islamabad_Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has vowed to crush terrorism by utilizing all the resources available, saying “We will not exhaust until this scourge is totally wiped out from the country,”

Addressing the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Apex Committee at Governor’s House in Peshawar on Friday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif stressed that unity is the key in defeating these anti-Pakistan elements.

“The whole nation is in mourning over the devastating terrorist attack on the Peshawar mosque,” he said, adding terrorism had been eliminated a few years back but now it was again raising its ugly head due to previous government’s wrong policies.

In his initial remarks at the apex committee, the prime minister said the Police Lines mosque blast is the deadliest incident after the APS incident of 2014.

Shehbaz Sharif said the federal government would extend maximum support in strengthening the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) and police of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to help it better fight terrorism.

The prime minister said the province witnessed a fresh spate of terrorist incidents that needed capacity-building of its security departments. He emphasized unity among all provinces to jointly fight the menace of terrorism.

Shehbaz Sharif condemned the ongoing campaign on social media against the Peshawar incident, terming it baseless and unfounded criticism. He vowed that a thorough investigation would be carried out and the culprits behind the terrorist incident would be taken to task.

The prime minister expressed solidarity with the families of those who lost their lives in the terrorist incident of Peshawar and announced compensation money of Rs2 million for the dead and Rs0.5 million for the injured, on behalf of the federal government.

He recalled that military operations including Zarb-e-Azb and Radd-ul-Fasaad successfully wiped out terrorism in the past. He said the nation would not forget the invaluable sacrifices of the armed forces and people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the war against terrorism.

Shehbaz said he had convened an All Parties Conference (APC) on February 7 to discuss ways to overcome the current national challenges. He also mentioned that invitation had been extended to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to attend the conference.

The meeting offered fateha for those who lost their lives in the suicide blast at the Peshawar mosque.

Services chiefs, federal ministers, chief ministers of all four provinces and Gilgit-Baltistan, AJK prime minister and senior officers of police sensitive institutions were present in the meeting.

Earlier, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan has decided against attending the All Parties Conference (APC) convened by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Feb 7 (Tuesday) to discuss ways to overcome the current national challenges.

“How we can sit with the government when it is violating the Constitution, registering sedition cases against us and arresting our people,” the former planning minister said.

The PTI leader also accused the government of deliberately creating confusion in holding elections, adding that Punjab Governor Balighur Rehman was not ready to give a date for elections in the province. He hoped that the election date would be decided by Thursday.

A day earlier, PM Shehbaz announced that he would hold the APC for which all the leading political leaders had been sent invitations. The prime minister also invited PTI Chairman Imran Khan to attend the conference. Federal Minister Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, a former speaker of the National Assembly, contacted PTI leaders Asad Qaiser and former defence minister Pervez Khattak to convey the invitation to Mr Khan for the key huddle.

The meeting has been called days after over 100 people, most of them police officials, were martyred and many others injured in a terrorist attack on a mosque in the Peshawar Police Lines. A suicide bomber, who managed to enter the red zone in guise of police official, blew himself up in the mosque. The blast was so powerful that a part of the mosque caved in, trapping several people under the rubble.