ANP: Taliban’s main target

The Awami National Party is certainly the main target of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan which has mounted deadly attacks on the party's rallies since the election campaign got underway. The party's election rallies have come under attack almost daily taking a heavy toll of life of the party workers and the common people. The latest of the rallies in Sardehri area of Charsadda where ANP leader Farooq Khan was targeted in a bomb blast in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Charsadda region on Wednesday. The blast occurred near the vehicle carrying Farooq Khan who escaped unhurt. Khan is the Vice-President of ANP in constituency of PK-17 and is also the coordinator of ANP President Asfandyar Wali Khan's election campaign. On Tuesday a suicide bomber targeted a rally of senior ANP leader and former Pakistan Railways minister Haji Ghulam Ahmed Bilour at an election rally of the same party at Gilani Chowk in Peshawar. He sustained minor injuries. Seventeen people, including three children and six police personnel, were killed while 64 were injured in the attack. Nineteen of the injured were still under treatment at the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar; condition of two wounded was reported to be critical. Previously, ANP leaders Syed Mukarram Shah and Syed Masoom Shah were targeted in two separate attacks. While Mukarram was killed, Masoom Shah sustained grievous injuries. The TTP, which has claimed the responsibility of all these attacks, had sometimes ago declared the Pakistan People's Party, the Pakhtun nationalist party ANP and urban Sindh-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement as its targets during the electioneering. All the three parties have a secular agenda and are opposed to Taliban's extremist views and militancy. The PPP, the country's largest political organization, had to cancel its main rally at Naudero, in Larkana, on April 4 this year for the first time in nearly three decades owing to security concerns. If this is the situation in the beginning of electioneering, the future could hold an appalling scenario, particularly on May 11, the day appointed for polling across the country. Voters turn-out on the day is all wrapped in an environment of fear and there may not be keenly contested elections this time. Candidates and their supporters will not escape the impact of these fearsome surroundings. The possibility of the upcoming parliamentary elections turning out to be the bloodiest cannot be ruled out with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the worst victim. What appears a major snag in the overall state of affairs is that despite the menace of extremism and terrorism taking a heavy toll of l life for years in and years out, police and other law enforcing agencies have not equipped themselves with the professional knack that is required to combat the twin menace. The country also failed in working out a intensive security strategy to serve as the basis of fighting terrorism and civil and military intelligence agencies also faltered in increasing their much needed coordination to counter terrorism. The same is the story of the recently established Counter Terrorism Authority which is facing similar lacunas. Such a strategy was formulated initially under a resolution by an all-party conference in Islamabad on Swat and Malakand on May 18, 2009. Moving ahead, a joint session of parliament passed on October 22 the same year a national security strategy was founded after a two-week in-camera session in which top men in security fray, military and civil, gave briefing in the presence of all the provincial and Gilgit-Baltistan chief ministers, senators and MNAs. What is needed is to pick up the thread of the two sessions and polish finer points of their resolutions to work out an effective anti-terrorism strategy. Similar will be the requirement of the Counter Terrorism Authority in working out a policy in this regard. The question arises as to what the caretaker administrations at the center and in provinces are doing to remedy the wrong. They have been assigned to hold free, fair and transparent election for the transition of democracy, but will they be able to achieve the cherished goal under the circumstances? True that the outgoing government, the Musharraf regime and earlier governments have not been able to raise an effective anti-terrorism edifice, the caretakers are, too, indulging in photo sessions and nothing concrete. They have a constitutional responsibility of passing on the baton of democracy to another in an environment where the electorate does not feel hesitant in going to polling stations for security reasons. This is their fundamental task which needs to be focused upon in all earnest.