Pakistan: Terrorism galore

The Law Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Israrullah Gandapur has been killed in a suicide attack while he was greeting guests at his home in Dera Ismail Khan on the first day of Eid. At least eight people died along with him. Though celebrations have become few and far between in the country, those left are also visited by terrorism. Since the state has lost the capacity to deliver a decisive blow to the enemy, it has become easy for the terrorists to target and get away with the crime. Knowing that the situation is precarious, especially in KP, the PTI government is behaving as though it is business as usual. The same slack attitude is on display as far as security arrangements throughout the country are concerned and no effort has been made to develop the national security policy on terrorism. For palpable reasons, now that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf is getting the direct flak, its KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak seems to be finally coming come out of the illusion that dialogue could bring the terrorists in from the cold. He has now decided to make some concrete plans to combat them. In the cabinet meeting called immediately after the suicide attack on Gandapur, the KP government has decided to create an anti-terrorist force and recall the Frontier Constabulary from the federal government. So much for the insistence of the KP government to send the army back to barracks from the area. Since it has become apparent that dialogue cannot be pursued as the lone strategy to tackle terrorism, it is time to define the modus operandi required to combat it. How many more lives and how many leaders do we wish to sacrifice before we are convinced that we are not facing any political opposition movement, but a terrorism movement, bent on enforcing its blinkered, narrow and literalist Islamic views on us. Even though the government had planned to talk things out with the enemy, still it was unprofessional and inappropriate not to have a Plan-B in case the hardline elements (as there usually are in such cases) within the Taliban do not respond. Pakistan is now portrayed as allowing its citizens to be killed and places all over the country hit any time. This is perceived as the state having lost its writ, and with that the impression gains ground that it could not do anything against its enemy. In such circumstances, it is difficult to bring the terrorists round to the viewpoint of the government through dialogue. Therefore, as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has rightly put it, it is time to establish the writ of the state to instil the fear of God in the enemy that they could be routed if they play dirty against the state.