Pakistan: Hard to escape terrorism

The murderous bomb attack on Justice Maqbool Baqar's security escort in Karachi on Wednesday, is indeed very distressing; but it's not the first of its kind nor, fearfully, the last one. Going by the phenomenal rise in the incidence of terrorism and the ever-expanding variety of its targets the state appears to be no more calling the shots. The terrorists choose the targets and go after them at the time of their choosing, invariably succeeding in their designs. One would hate to say that state has forfeited its responsibility to protect the life and property of the citizens, but on the ground there is not much to suppress that perception. Paradoxically though, the authorities are never short of making claims of netting serial target-killers, cracking up criminal mafias and laying hands on terrorist squads' ringleaders. And occasionally raids are conducted on criminal hideouts and 'huge stocks of lethal arms' are recovered. Juxtapose these two scenarios, and inescapable conclusion would be that while we know who the terrorist is who is on his back but we can't do anything. Consider the number of terrorist suspects that occasionally fall in the hands of the investigating agencies. Not that our investigators are too weak-hearted to effectively squeeze information out of their subjects; in fact our investigation cells are notorious for their hard questioning. Wonder, how is it that the terrorists' highroad reach to our life is still unchecked, and they play with our lives with such abandon. Is it then that our agencies tasked to tackle the menace of rampant terrorism in the country are running with the hare and hunting with the hounds? That Justice Baqar was the target of extremists and therefore was given rather heavy security is not enough of a battle that the government is expected to fight against the enemy who is not only well-informed, adequately armed, highly motivated and no more hidden. Was it humanly possible to screen and scan the entire route the judge's convoy was to take or to close it for general public. As we see everyday, only the provision of security cover during travel wasn't enough to secure Justice Maqbool Baqar. Pakistan today is confronted with a multifaceted threat of terrorism which has to be fought back with many more tools of which the most critical is intelligence. As we write these lines the Gilgit-Baltistan government is busy claiming arrests of about a score of suspects who killed foreign mountain climbers on this past Sunday night. If it was so easy to spot the suspects and arrest them, the question is why such a band of perverted mind couldn't be kept away from the Nanga Parbat base camp where no less than two scores of foreign climbers were camping. The sad coda is that despite the colossal suffering, the people of Pakistan have at the hands of terrorists - who are of many genres, but now the most active are the religious extremists - the country doesn't have a workable counter-terrorism strategy. All that we have all these years is fire-fighting, followed by plethora of condolences and loudly-expressed commitments to chase these terrorists to the gates of hell. And nothing happens after that. Is there any ambiguity as to who and where the leaderships of Taliban or Lashkar-i-Jhangvi are? It's good to learn that the Nawaz Sharif government would try interdicting the extremist entities from getting foreign funds, but is there a doubt that Pakistan is the battlefield of others' proxy war and we know who these 'others' are. Then, there is alarming inadequacy of law to secure punishment of the culprits. There has to be special laws to deal with this extraordinary situation; if the liberty of a suspect is sacrosanct so is the life of peaceful citizenry. We need to raise an anti-terrorist taskforce with mandate to operate independent of local control. In fact as to what should be done at the legal and administrative levels to stitch up a framework for effective counter-terrorism, there is no dearth of guidance available with the government. What is lacking is will and determination on the part of the government to move forward - a costly failing of which the enemy is making the best use. If the Karachi police advice for the persons whose life is under threat to 'change three things: the route, timing and the vehicle' then we had it.