A cleric was arrested by security agencies from Lahore yesterday.
The cleric, Qari Ahrar, a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) employee, was arrested on charges of supporting the Taliban during his Friday sermon last week. Ahrar had reportedly led a public ‘dua’ for the Taliban to emerge victorious.
Ahrar was a cleric in the CAA staff colony mosque in Lahore and was associated with the civil aviation for 20 years, CAA sources told the media.
Since the attack on Peshawar’s Army Public School on December 16, 2014, military and political leadership have formed a National Action Plan to counter terrorism.
Establishment of military courts in the country and lifting of a long-held moratorium on the death penalty have been a few of the major developments in this regard, along with the formation of multiple committees to deal with the many dimensions of the security threat.
Among those was also a committee to monitor hate speech, headed by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.
The committee’s prime responsibility was to make recommendations on how to counter hate speech and extremist material.
it should be noted that the CAA is a government run institution.
