ISLAMABAD, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan has witnessed a sharp drop in the number of terrorist attacks related to sectarianism in 2017, a result of strict policies adopted by the state institutions during last three years, an official report revealed on Monday.
The official data stated that a visible decline was observed in the sectarian terrorism with reporting of only two such incidents during this year as compared to the previous years.
According to the statistics issued by the interior ministry, during last seven years, total 676 incidents of sectarian terrorism were reported, of which 70 were recorded during 2011, 185 in 2012, 127 in 2013, 176 in 2014, 79 in 2015, 37 during 2016 and two such incidents in 2017.
Pakistan's success against the terrorism was the result of the implementation of National Action Plan (NAP), a strategy adopted by the country following the brutal terrorist attack at a school in December 2014 in which over 140 children were killed.
Under the NAP, a wide-range operation against terrorists and their aids were launched across Pakistan indiscriminately, in which around 2,127 terrorists were killed and 5,884 other terrorists were arrested
Soon after the school attack, Pakistan removed the ban on the capital punishment and so far 483 persons, including high profile terrorists, had been hanged.
From January 2015 till August this year, under the NAP, 937 Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), 10 websites of Proscribed Organizations against abuse of Internet and Social Media have been blocked under the steps to dismantling communication networks of terrorists.
At least 63 organization were banned, three were put under-surveillance, while 8,333 persons were brought under close observation.
To choke finances of terrorists, at least 5,023 bank accounts were frozen, total 1,543 people were arrested under 1,113 anti-money-laundering cases and an amount of Rs.1,321 million (15.58 million U.S. dollars) were recovered from them.
Strict implementation of ban regarding glorification of terrorists on both print and electronic media is also being enforced in the country.
During this period, the Counter-Terrorism Force (CTF) was also established with a total strength of 9,039 personnel. The CTF has participated in a number of operations and got exemplary success against terrorism, the report said.
