PESHAWAR -UNS: Government is not ready to fulfill militants demands. In tweet Special Assistant to CM KPK Muhammad Ali Saif clarified that the government would not fulfill any demand of the terrorists.He said the situation was at a standstill and there was no breakthrough as yet.
Speaking to Dawn.com, Saif also said that he was constantly in contact with the Taliban. “I spoke to the Taliban high-ups through the night,” he said, admitting that talks had not been fruitful thus far.
Talks between the government and militants — who took over the Bannu Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) compound a day earlier — did not result in any breakthrough despite the lapse of almost 15 hours.
On Sunday, detained militants inside the CTD facility took over its compound, held interrogators hostage and demanded safe evacuation to Afghanistan.
The situation in Bannu remained tense on Monday as police and security agencies cordoned off the cantonment area — where the facility is located — and asked residents to stay indoors. Internet and mobile phone services were also suspended in the area.
The outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the incident. In a statement, a spokesperson for the militant group said that its members had taken CTD staff and security officials as hostage. He added that the militants — in a previous video statement — had demanded safe passage but “mistakenly mentioned Afghanistan”.
Saif said the group had spoken to government officials overnight and asked them to “shift the prisoners” to either South or North Waziristan, but lamented that they had not received a positive response so far.
