Pakistan People's Party's (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar Saturday submitted a calling attention notice to Senate Secretariat, seeking a debate on a recent report that intelligence agencies were "shielding" terrorists.

Babar's notice - based on a petition submitted in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) by an Intelligence Bureau (IB) employee - drew Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal's attention towards the reports that terrorists are being shielded and protected by an intelligence agency itself.

Babar said that circumstantial evidence to support the claim exists, adding that there are "reports that some militants are being protected by some invisible forces." While highlighting such instances, Babar said that Maulana Masood Azhar, the head of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), "has repeatedly been protected from UN sanctions for unexplained reasons."

Babar also said that the discovery of a "Pakistani national identity card and passport from the person of Mullah Mansoor Akhtar - who was killed in a drone strike in May last year - should have [led to] investigations into [who is] protecting [the] Taliban."

"However, there has been no progress in the case ... as is evident from the replies to questions recently asked in the Senate raising suspicions of a cover up [in the matter]," he added. Babar also recalled that in the recent NA-120 by-elections, the photographs of a "banned militant leaders appearing on the election posters of a candidate" had raised concern but the "Interior ministry failed to take notice [of this]."

In the notice, Babar further said that the complaint of the IB employee against his own department has lent a sense of urgency to the matter. According to media reports, the IB, in response to the above mentioned petition in the IHC, has demanded that the petition be dismissed as it is "frivolous."