RAWALPINDI, Pakistan: The Director General Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor has said that it is our collective duty as ‘state’ and individual duty in our respective domain to shield our youth against threat of extremism, adding that the process involves identification of threat and response measures.
In his address at the opening of a seminar on “Role of Youth in Rejecting Extremism” held at the army auditorium in Rawalpindi on Thursday as part of the ongoing operation Radd-ul-Fasaad, the director general ISPR said that the operation Radd-ul-Fasaad is aimed at consolidating gains of all military operations earlier concluded in Kinetic domain and to bring about an enduring peace and stability.
“One of its strands is to eliminate extremism from our society,” he said.
The director general ISPR said that the requirement becomes more pronounced when we see that the nature and character of this conflict has also changed with ideology of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) which focuses on targeting minds of our youth.
Major General Asif Ghafoor said that amongst others, we owe our achievements in ongoing operations to the youth. He said that of all the sacrifices made by uniformed Pakistanis 90 percent contributions are by our youth i.e young soldiers and officers.
“Let us not allow their supreme sacrifice to go waste and convert our achievements into an enduring success,” the DG ISPR said.
The seminar on “Role of Youth in Rejecting Extremism” is being organized by the ISPR in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission (HEC).
While giving an outline of the seminar, the DG ISPR said that during the course of this Seminar, we intend to have full spectrum analysis of phenomena of extremism: what is the threat and its fault lines? How students view it? How does it look like from prism of religion and economy and also to suggest response including role of our education institutions and society.
The DG ISPR said that towards the end of the seminar before the keynote address by the Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, we look forward to some very healthy and productive interactive session between speakers and the guests.
“I would particularly request the youth to express their opinions freely and ask any question that may be there in your minds,” he said.
“I sincerely believe that it is only through free exchange of ideas and courage to differ that the dream of truly tolerant Pakistan can be realized.”
In his concluding remarks, the director general ISPR thanked the Chairman HEC Dr Mukhtar Ahmed for helping them in organizing the event.
