Pak mosques collecting donations for Afghan Taliban: Opposition Party

Pakistan opposition party Awami National Party (ANP) on Tuesday said that mosques were collecting donations for Afghan Taliban and asked the government to act swiftly to end the practice.

Speaking at condolence reference arranged at Bacha Khan Markaz to pay homage to Sadruddin Marwat, the party's former provincial spokesman, ANP provincial president Aimal Wali Khan disclosed about the collection of donations, reported Dawn.

He said the people who were advocating for recognition of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Afghanistan could not be called as friends of Pakhtuns.

Aimal Wali claimed that though Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Jamaat-i-Islami were not allies in the government they were taking dictation from the same source, reported Dawn.

The ANP leader said his party had always pinpointed that the terrorists were regrouping in parts of the country but the government was least bothered to take stern action against them, reported Dawn.

He said keeping in view the past mistakes Pakistan should reset its priorities to eradicate terrorism once for all.

In January, Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), said the Pakistani Taliban and its affiliates continued to regroup in erstwhile FATA in 2020 and the National Action Plan by the country's government has not been "fully successful" in countering terrorism.

In a report, the PIPS stated that different militant, nationalist, insurgent and violent sectarian groups perpetrated 146 attacks across Pakistan, including three suicide blasts, which is a decline of over 36 percent from the previous year, Dawn reported.

The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is a banned organisation in Pakistan, and its affiliates remained the major actors of instability in Pakistan in 2020 which perpetrated a combined total of 67 terrorist attacks or about 46 per cent of the total reported attacks in 2020, mainly in erstwhile FATA.

( With inputs from ANI )