LAHORE - In the ongoing operation against terrorists in Punjab, 17 terrorists have been executed in the last one-and-half years while 11,808 have been fined and imprisoned for various offences, including hate speech, sectarian graffiti and misuse of loudspeaker.
Those punished by the courts till September 5, 2016, also included 25 facilitators of terrorists. These statistics were presented at a high-level meeting on law order held the other day with Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif in the chair.
According to details, 157 criminals were punished for hate speech, 500 for sectarian graffiti, 3,448 for misuse of loudspeaker and 3,676 for display of arms during this period.
As many as 3,669 persons, including landlords, tenants and property agents were punished for not giving prior information to the government.
The law-enforcement agencies detained 829 high-profile criminals and listed 253 miscreants in the fourth schedule in the same period.
The Punjab government sent four cases for trial in the military courts which awarded capital punishment to eight terrorists. Mercy petitions of seven terrorists are pending with the President of Pakistan, who rejected the petition of one terrorist and his case is now under trail in the Lahore High Court.
As part of the government’s measures to block funding of terrorists, it has also clamped ban on collection of donations and sacrificial hides by banned religious outfits on Eidul Azha.
The law-enforcement agencies arrested 3,818 persons who had been booked in 4,148 cases and 2,960 challans were presented in courts of which 442 cases were decided. The courts awarded punishment of fine and imprisonment to 316 criminals. In a crackdown against extremists, a total of 97,608 cases were registered while 105,131 were arrested for hate speech, graffiti, show of arms and other offences.
The government registered 10,691 cases for violation of Punjab Sound System Regulation Ordinance while 11,399 accused were arrested and challans of 9,768 presented in the courts. Of these, 4,007 were disposed of, awarding punishment of fine and imprisonment to 3,448 criminals.
The meeting was also informed that the government had completed geo-tagging of 13,782 madrasas, 62,678 mosques and 2,925 places of worship of minorities in the province. Of total 8,286 NGOs, geotagging of 4,200 has been done while 3,427 have been registered. Action was taken against four NGOs after special audit of 125 carried out by the Social Welfare Department.