Pakistan: All-out war against extremism

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom on Thursday painted a grim and challenging picture of growing religious extremism that had claimed lives over 700 people in Pakistan during the past 18 months, urging Islamabad to take concrete, resolute action to curb religious violence and emphasizes the need to ensure that perpetrators of violence are arrested, prosecuted and jailed. The US Commission forms the basis of its report on 203 publicly-reported incidents in Pakistan, resulting in over 1,800 casualties including those of 700 dead. Sectarian violence in Pakistan is of a prime concern for every Pakistani haplessly watching human bodies falling down like dried leaves in autumn every other day. The most of the religious militant organizations, born to resist the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, had been declared outlawed over the years yet they are relentlessly operative in many parts of the country but not without the foreign funding they are receiving even today. Thus any action against the outlawed extremists have become a difficult proposition despite the successive governments have planned to do so. The religious extremism has attained a complex dimensions. Many of the extremists of the outlawed religious outfits have formed their own splinter groups and have developed their nexus with the notorious bandits, the eminent political figures and the foreign contractors. Of late, the gangsters of notorious Chhotu Mazari gang operative in south Punjab, who are said to be linked to the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, had kidnapped the eight policemen to use them as a bargaining chip for the release of three arrested gang members and the annulment of criminal cases against them. One of the kidnapped policemen has already died in the captivity. Police, restraining from using force against them for obvious reasons, are negotiating with the kidnappers through a local PML-N law-maker without a success. The talks between the two reportedly broke off when the authorities refused to free one of the arrested men on the kidnappers’ demand. In a state where the police had to negotiate with the criminals for the release of their colleagues, the rooting out such hardened criminals is, of course, a challenging task for the government that had assumed power just a little over month ago. Thus in the given scenario, any emphasis on the government to go after them is little over-ambitious call. The findings of the US report are, no doubt, sobering. The religious extremism is number one enemy of the state that the government and its security forces had firm resolve to root out the menace at the earliest. But it needs the cooperation of the world community to help stop foreign funding of the banned outfits, militants and disgruntled elements working against the existence of Pakistan. The situation existing today reminds foreign interference that cut off Pakistan in two pieces in 1971. After their own failure in the decade-long war on terror, the Americans are sharing a negotiating table with Taliban how can Pakistan on its own do what the US is urging it to do. First, the US and allies have to stop abetting and harboring the splinter groups and disgruntled elements living in there respective states only then Pakistan Government can purge the society with vengeance and commitment even it can successfully launch cleansing against the state actors that the US thinks are not blameless either. Pakistan has reached a point of do-or-die where it had to go for all-out war against all ills that are threatening its survival.