Interior Minister Rehman Malik said leaders and workers of Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) and Mutahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) were being targeted by terrorists to create instability in the country. Talking to media personnel after returning from Peshawar where he attended the funeral of senior provincial minister Bashir Bilour on Sunday, Malik said attacks on political leaders were part of a policy of the militants to silence their voice. He said the time was not right to go into debates over the philosophy of politics or state saying Pakistan’s situation today was worse than what it faced in 1969 and 1971. He questioned as to why ANP and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) were major targets for terrorists. He said those who killed Bilour were the same people who had targeted defense installations of the country.
He said the Pakistani Taliban had become a limited company and were targeting innocent people, kidnapping for ransom and conducting robberies. These people, he said, were against the solidarity and security of Pakistan and will have to be defeated. Malik said he had earlier warned that top leadership of the country would be targets of militant attacks adding that the interior ministry had issued an alert on 19th December. He said the Pakistani Taliban had declared him their next target over radio a few days ago but he was not afraid of such threats.
