Clarity needed: Blasts in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa

THE facts are few, but incontrovertible. Over the course of a week, various targets were hit in KP. Increasingly, those targets have become soft ones. Beyond that, the facts quickly give way to theory and speculation. Several groups have claimed responsibility for the various attacks, but there remains some uncertainty about at least some of the attacks — who is really responsible and why now, just when the country’s political leadership is bending over backwards to seemingly accommodate the militants? To probe these questions is not to dabble in conspiracy theories that are being peddled by militancy sympathisers. After all, both the prime minister and the interior minister have expressed doubts about who is behind the latest string of attacks and why — and neither man is known to be particularly gung-ho about talks or prone to hyperbole. What is required though are more cold, hard facts. For too long now, the country’s leadership, be it civilian or uniformed, have talked all too easily about external conspiracies, saboteurs and unnamed enemies of peace without ever offering up public proof. That outside powers or neighbouring countries could be playing dirty games inside Pakistan is and always will remain a possibility. That there are elements within the spectrum of militancy and terrorism who are implacably opposed to talks for ideological or mercenary reasons is also always a possibility. But in the absence of clear public proof, the people are entitled to discount such theories. After all, it is just as much a possibility, if not more, that the TTP does not really want talks. Similarly, having found the state to be so defensive and supine in its offer of talks, more violence now could make sense for the TTP because it can cause a near-capitulation by the state to become a real capitulation. There is a broader problem here. Even when militants are caught, arrested, prosecuted and convicted, there is little attempt by the authorities, or the media even, to explain the linkages and the campaigns of violence to the public. To this day, while the names Baitullah and Hakeemullah may mean something to most people, there is little real public understanding of what the TTP is, who its constituent elements are and how the terror umbrella functions. This is because the state has preferred to alternately peddle in conspiracy theories and obfuscation over the years. The violence that has been visited on Pakistan is apparent to all. It is perhaps time the country’s leadership starts divulging what it does know, instead of always just darkly hinting at the facts.