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Pak province plans to de-radicalise militants

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Press Trust of India Islamabad
Seeking to rehabilitate and de-radicalise about 300 militants in various jails of Pakistan's southern Sindh province, authorities are planning to create their physological profiles to understand the possible factors leading to militancy.

The plan has been prepared by Sindh police's Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD).

Under the proposed initiative, the CTD would conduct psychological profiling of the arrested militants to ascertain the possible factors, leading to militancy as a move to rehabilitate them, the Dawn reported.

"The CTD Sindh has taken an initiative to create psychological profiles of arrested militants in the province," said additional inspector general of the CTD, Sindh police, Sanaullah Abbasi yesterday.
 

He said a unit of the CTD Sindh had been deputed to go to jails to create such profiles along the lines of a proforma created by the National Counter Terrorism Authority to better identify the factors that lead to radicalisation of young men.

The CTD chief said the unit concerned had around 15 police personnel, who would collect data about the imprisoned militants in Karachi and other parts of Sindh.

Abbasi said there were 250 to 300 militants in different prisons of the province.

The CTD police were also planning to sign a memorandum of understanding preferably with the University of Karachi or another educational institution to seek help of qualified psychiatrists who could examine and profile high-value suspects in the future.

This exercise would be aimed at identifying the issues in psychological make-up of the militants and also to use these profiles as a first step to create the basis for a rehabilitation programme in Sindh.

Subsequently, a deradicalisation or rehabilitation centre or complex would be established preferably at the Razzaqabad police training centre in Karachi, where an antiterrorism university was also being planned to be established for a similar purpose.

Earlier in January 2016, the CTD with the help of family members and psychiatrists had helped 'deradicalise and rehabilitate' two Islamic State-inspired militants in Karachi.

Separately, army is running a center to de-radicalize militants in Swat district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

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First Published: Jan 02 2017 | 3:02 PM IST

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