Islamabad: Pakistan yesterday rejected international concerns over imposition of emergency rule in the country, asking friendly countries to understand the reasons behind the extraordinary step.
Spokesman of foreign ministry Muhammad Sadiq said emergency rule had been clamped to control the alarming surge in terrorism and militancy. He said the emergency and suspension of the constitution was entirely an internal matter of Pakistan.
"We expect the friendly countries to understand the conditions which prompted this extraordinary step," he told the state-run television.
The spokesman said terrorism and extremism were the international challenges in the contemporary world and Pakistan was doing its best to curb the menace alongside international partners.
Pakistan's interior ministry said yesterday 667 people were killed and 1,821 injured in 157 terrorist attacks including 43 suicide attacks and 114 bomb blasts in the country this year. Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said a number of possible terrorist attacks were foiled by security agencies. "The enormity of the challenge posed by planners and executors of suicide bombings was too complex to overcome," Cheema said.
Court annuls order against emergency
Pakistan's reconstituted Supreme Court yesterday declared null and void a weekend order passed by a seven-member bench against imposition of emergency and suspension of the constitution.
A bench comprising eight of the nine judges of the Supreme Court ruled that Saturday's order was passed without lawful authority and "shall be deemed to have never been passed".
The new chief justice of the country Abdul Hameed Dogar headed the bench, which said the "unlawful order" was passed after the issuance of declaration of emergency and provisional constitution order (PCO) when the judges involved had ceased to hold office.
