ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday held its first Pakistan Day parade in seven years, a display of pageantry aimed at showing the country has the upper hand in the fight against the terrorists.
Mobile phone networks in the capital were disabled to thwart potential bomb attacks, some roads were closed to the public and much of the city was under heavy guard for the event.
The annual Pakistan Day parade was last held in 2008 before authorities abandoned it because of fears it could be targeted as militants increased their attacks on the military.
Folk artists perform during the parade. PHOTO: AFP
The military says the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is on the rack now thanks to an offensive waged against militant strongholds since June last year, allowing the display of martial pomp to be restarted.
The event, presided over by President Mamnoon Hussain, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief General Raheel Sharif, was held on a parade ground in leafy Islamabad.
The event comes just over three months after TTP gunmen massacred more than 150 people, most of them children, at a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar, an atrocity that shocked even conflict-weary Pakistan.
President Hussain paid tribute to soldiers fighting militants in the restive northwest, calling them his sons and pledging to go to the front line to hug them.
President Mamnoon Hussain rides a horse-drawn carriage escorted by presidential guards as he arrives at the venue for the Pakistan Day military parade in Islamabad on March 23, 2015. PHOTO: AFP
“I also salute the innocent martyrs of the Army Public School Peshawar, who by sacrificing their lives made it clear to the enemy that this nation cannot be defeated,” the president said.
Both modern and more traditional elements of Pakistan’s military arsenal were on display, from nuclear-capable missiles and the new home-made armed Burraq drone to a camel-mounted musical band.
Camel-mounted military band performs during the parade. PHOTO: AFP
There were fly-pasts by the air force, including some dizzying aerobatic displays by JF-17 Thunder fighters, which are locally produced in cooperation with close ally China.
PHOTO: AFP
Nuclear-capable Nasr and Shaheen missiles, which have a range of up to 1,500 kilometres (900 miles), and Babur cruise missiles were also paraded.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he had written to his counterpart Sharif to congratulate him on Monday.
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