What in the World was The National Action Plan?
In a television address, Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced a comprehensive strategy to defeat terrorism in Pakistan. This strategy was called the 20-point National Action Plan (NAP). This was bound to strengthen and activate the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA).
This plan included steps for registration and regulation of seminaries, a ban on the glorification of terrorists in media, FATA reforms, tapping and disintegrating the communication networks of terrorists, measures against abuse of the internet and social media for terrorism, a Karachi operation to end lawlessness to name a few.
Progress on NAP has been uneven and unsatisfactory. It was announced to review the matter after the Quetta bombing that left more than 50 lawyers dead and caused public outrage and anger. However, a committee led by former Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, failed to produce any tangible results without any legal and constitutional framework.
Even though there a lot of refugees had been going back to their country, there hasn’t been a coordinated plan to speed up the process. The most difficult and complex issue that has little or no tangible progress is the reconciliation process in Balochistan.
The NAP had promised a comprehensive policy on Afghan refugees’ registration and repatriation after the APS attack due to which they were considered the mother of all evils. The two goals that were set for the NAP agenda were that firstly, there will be no further extension beyond December 2016 for registered refugees to amicably return home. Secondly, the undocumented Afghans were to be registered through NADRA within six months. At that point, there were about 1.5 million registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan while 1 million were unregistered wholly.
NADRA was just about to start the drive when the interior ministry clamped down on the registration plan, claiming that the registration of refugees was not under SAFRON’s directive. The cross-border movement of people and goods has been regularised only at Torkham however, other routes are still functional for human trafficking and smuggling purposes. The IOM claims that about 60000 refugees have returned home out of1.5 million since January this year.
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