Rawalpindi: Major General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the director general of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), is speaking to a press conference in Islamabad.
He is providing the press with a security update. He has specifically denounced India’s 56 violations of the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC). According to him, these included 25 technical air violations, three airspace violations, six minor ceasefire violations, and 22 cases of speculative fire incidents. Six Indian spy quadcopters were shot down by Pakistan in the meantime. The DG ISPR emphasized that Pakistan was constantly ready to fully repel such Indian aggressions. He also praised the security forces’ anti-terrorism initiatives. In the present year, 219 events of terrorist activity have been reported in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), followed by 206 n Balochistan, 6 in Sindh and 5 in Punjab. General Chaudhry also revealed that a total of 8269 intelligence-based operations (IBOs) have been conducted as a result of which 1535 terrorists have been killed or apprehended. Of these, 4040 IBOs were conducted in Balochistan, another 3591 in K-P, 119 in Punjab and 519 operations were conducted in Sindh.
The DG ISPR revealed that on average over 70 IBOs were being conducted daily by the army, police and LEAs since January. He said that successful IBOs against terrorist networks led to the identification of the suicide attacker in the February 11 bombing at Mari Petroleum Company in North Waziristan. Speaking of the January 23 attack on the Police Lines in Peshawar, the DG ISPR said that the suicide bomber had belonged to Jamaat-ul-Ahrar in collaboration with TTP. General Chaudhry informed the media about the February 23 Karachi Police Office Building attackers as well, all three of whom were killed. “Three masterminds of this attack were also arrested afterwards,” he said noting that explosives and other ammunition were also retrieved from them. This is his first press conference since taking office in December. He had replaced Lieutenant General Babar Iftikhar.
