ISLAMABAD: The government announced on Thursday that it had released 19 non-combatant Taliban as a goodwill gesture for bolstering the peace process with the outlawed TTP.
But surprisingly, the claim made by the interior ministry was rebutted by the Prime Minister’s Secretariat which said that “release of some prisoners involved in petty crimes by the political administration has been wrongly connoted as release of Taliban prisoners”.
The statement emanating from the Prime Minister’s House was in fact a reaction to a report by an international wire service claiming that the prisoners were freed with the approval of the prime minister.
“It is clarified that there has been no authorisation given from the prime minister in this regard,” the brief statement said.
The interior ministry has announced the release of the first large batch of people since the launch of military operation in South Waziristan in 2009.
A spokesman for the ministry said the prisoners released were non-combatant Taliban belonging to the Mehsud tribe.
However, the confusion created by the contradictory positions taken by the interior ministry and the PM Office was soon over when hours after the denial, the latter confirmed the release of non-combatants and said the measure had been taken at the local level on the directives of the interior ministry.
