by Muhammad Tahir
ISLAMABAD, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain has signed a bill to revive military courts for fast trials of terrorism-related cases, just days after the treasury and the opposition parties in the parliament joined hands to approve the amendment in the constitution.
The rare unity of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and major opposition parties on the issue sent a clear message to the militants that the peoples' representatives are in the same trench to fight against terrorism.
The two-year mandate of the military courts had expired in January and the country's Senate and National Assembly separately passed the constitutional amendment to extend its period for another two years.
The government insisted on the extension of the court's tenure as the country still faces challenges of terrorism and only in February some 100 people, almost all civilians, were killed in a series of terrorist attacks in the country. The banned Pakistani Taliban groups and the Islamic State (IS) claimed the brutal and bloody attacks.
The idea behind the establishment of the military courts in 2015 was to put on speedy trial on the militants involved in terrorist activities as their cases would take a long time in the normal courts because of many other pending cases in the courts.
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