Senior officers take exception to ridiculing army

ISLAMABAD: Senior army officers on Friday expressed concern over ridiculing the army as an institution. What is all this happening, they questioned.

A 75-member delegation of the Command and Staff College, Quetta, with Lieutenant Colonel Saqib Ali Cheema in the chair had a dialogue with Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Defence Mushahid Ali Sayed at the Parliament House.

During the conversation, the army officers raised many questions regarding the situation and asked what was going on in the country because the army could not be ridiculed as enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan.

Mushahid said that the way the situation was being run was highly regrettable and the red line should not be crossed in any case lest the situation reached the point of no return. He said that any individual or institution should not be targeted in any case but it should also be kept in mind that the whole institution could not be punished for the mistake committed by an individual.

APP adds: The delegates questioned why education did not seem to be high priority in policy making as well as soughtreasons for lack of legislation about terrorism.Responding to it, Senator Mushahid said unfortunately certain sections of political elites did not deem education a top priority as the way forward was allocation of development funds to education and health, which are often wasted otherwise.

Expressing his views regarding the lack of legislation to curb terrorism, Senator Mushahid said that this was an issue of legislature, government and judiciary.The senator accepted the criticism of parliament and said that it had unfortunately been slow to find relevant legislation in this regard.

Senator Mushahid said that there were multiple power centers playing effective role in strengthening democracy and democratic traditions in the country. He praised the role of the armed forces, saying that the valiant men in Khaki were giving tremendous sacrifices in the war against terrorism and extremism and definitely fighting the battle for Pakistan.

“We are all proud of professionalism of our armed forces. In this regard, it is mentioned in the Constitution of Pakistan that the judiciary and armed forces are national institutions, which should not be subjected to any kind of criticism,” he said. An animated question-answer session followed the briefing and souvenirs were exchanged.