ISLAMABAD - The top bosses of National Counter Terrorism are likely to recommend to the federal government to close down its Joint Intelligence Directorate — a place having representation of all intelligence and law enforcement agencies to coordinate intelligence information and counter- terrorism effectively.
The JID was the ambitious plan of the last Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government to counter terrorism in most effective way by making a central platform to coordinate all intelligence information from different agencies for its proper utilisation and implementation. Former Nacta chief Ihsan Ghani implemented the plan though partially.
Nacta National Coordinator Mehr Khaliq Dad Lak, a senior police officer, in his recently prepared recommendations as part of the “Nacta Reforms” has stressed that JID should be closed down as there is no need of a joint intelligence directorate, the official sources said. The newly-appointed Nacta chief is of the view that the JID should be replaced only with “Intelligence Directorate.” The authority has prepared this key recommendation along with others that would be presented before the Nacta Reforms Committee headed by Finance Minister Asad Umar. The committee was formed on the directions of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The official sources in the Nacta informed that Nacta NC has a view that it was not the duty of the authority to collect intelligence from all agencies rather it should analyse the information on counter-terrorism and pass it to the departments concerned for its proper implementation.
In its other recommendations, Nacta has proposed to abolish the law wing of the authority. The law wing has the mandate to propose new laws to the government on counter-terrorism as required from time to time keeping in view the need of time. It has the responsibility to propose amendments in the existing counter-terrorism laws to make them more stringent and effective. Nacta has also proposed for the formation of a new “monitoring wing” within the authority to monitor all 20 points of the National Action Plan (NAP) on Counter Terrorism. The last PML-N government had announced NAP after a terrorist attack on Army Public School in Peshawar.
Under the original plan of JID, as many as 35 desks of different intelligence and law enforcement agencies including Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Military Intelligence (MI), Intelligence Bureau (IB), Rangers, provincial counter-terrorism departments, police and National Highways and Motorways Police etc had to be established to coordinate intelligence as well as all efforts on counter-terrorism.
Former Nacta National Coordinator Ihsan Ghani had made functional the JID partially as all 35 desks have still to be established in it. However, some of the intelligence agencies had dominance in the JID and their representatives are working there.
During the last week of September, PM Imran Khan had decided to review role and functions of Nacta during its first-ever meeting of the Board of Governors after its chief himself discredited his own institution. While briefing the BoGs meeting, Lak had said that the performance of Nacta was dismal since its inception. He had said that performance of all former Nacta chiefs remained miserable and they had done nothing during their tenures. He while replying to a question of the prime minister had said that there was no need of Nacta.
Upon this, the prime minister had questioned as to what was the need to spend public money on an institution that has done nothing in the past. The prime minister during the meeting has decided to constitute a committee for reviewing the role and functioning of the organisation, a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office had said at that time.
The Nacta was primarily established as a think-tank in 2008 to do research and formulate policies on counter-terrorism and counter-extremism and to play the role of a coordinator of intelligence information. In March 2013, the parliament gave legal cover to the Authority under Nacta Act, 2013. Under this act, the authority has the mandate to act as a focal national institution and unify state response to counter extremism and terrorism by combining the efforts of law enforcement and intelligence agencies and by formulating and implementing policies and action plans through continuous research, adaptive innovation and ancillary mechanisms.