Punjab: The Brain Behind TTP

By Maryam Kanwer

The debate about dealing with the Taliban has intensified across the country dividing the public opinion in two schools of thought. One group insists on starting a major and full-fledge operation against the Taliban which should eliminate all signs of the Taliban from “the land of pure”. The other group, which is quite smaller in number, believes that a military operation is no solution in getting rid of the Taliban. Interestingly, both groups are anti-Taliban.

Ironically, the heat of the wave becomes fierce whenever the Taliban terrorism strikes the General Headquarters, some military bases, check posts or urban Punjab.

I am anti-war and I think the killing of even a single innocent person whether caused by collateral damage or under the pretext of “national security” is still unjustified and unacceptable.

Based on what I have learned from the history, the Taliban are a lesser evil than the army itself which has nurtured and tolerated these extremists for decades. According to a report in the New York Times, local residents believe that the fresh operation is targeting innocent civilians instead of hitting the actual Taliban hideouts.

“We know very well who is a Taliban and who is a civilian,” the Times quoted Muqeem Khan Dawar, a local schoolteacher from Mir Ali, “we were sleeping, and they attacked us in the night.”

While the army operation may kill a few terrorists, I believe most of the people targeted in these operations are innocent civilians. Even if one innocent citizen is killed, it is wrong. So, the killing of innocent civilians is wrong whether the Taliban, the army or the drones are responsible for these extrajudicial killings.

A lethal brand of the Taliban, known as the Punjabi Taliban, is currently safely hiding and operating from the Punjab province. The army, on the contrary, has not objected to their presence in the Punjab nor has it ever attempted to eliminate them. There clearly seems to be a selective application of the army’s anti-Taliban operations which is why we do not see a complete end of militant activities across the country despite repeated unproductive operations against the Taliban.

The Punjab, Pakistan’s most populated province, has become a breeding ground for the Taliban. The province is also a support base for militant groups. According to a B.B.C. report, at least 17 banned Jihadist groups are operating in the Punjab under different names.

“They are raising donations through religious gatherings, certificate award ceremonies and meetings held in the name of social welfare,” the B.B.C. quoted a leaked intelligence report.

Districts of Jhang, Faisalabad and Multan have become a hub for terrorism and Taliban activities. These are the same organizations and their activists who actually polluted and poisoned the minds of young Pakhtuns. I have never seen them carrying out bomb blasts or any terrorist activities in their own districts in Jhang and Faisalbad.

Some of the prominent organizations, including the banned outfits, that have a presence in the Punjab include the Jammat-e-Islami, Ahle Sunnat wal Jammat, Jammat-ud-Dawa, Lashkar-e-Taibia, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and many others.

There is a common saying that Taliban tu Punjab mai baitha hain. [There are Taliban in Punjab as well]. The support base for the Taliban and extremist mindset in the Punjab is so widespread that you can easily find millions of admirers of Mumtaz Qadiri, the security guard who killed former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer for allegedly committing blasphemy. If there are Taliban everywhere, including the Punjab, why are we only bombing the Pakhtun areas? The Jihad factories are in Punjab. Sushant Sareen, the author of the book The Jihad Factory: Pakistan’s Islamic Revolution in the Making, quotes leading Pakistani security analyst Amir Rana describe the Punjab as the “nerve center of Jihad” from where 50% of the Jihadists come. “A survey of 10 big jihadi groups has revealed that over 10,000 people from Punjab have died for Jihad. Out of this figure, Afghanistan accounted for some 4000 deaths and the rest are in Kashmir…40 % of the Jihadis from Punjab belong to 5500 madrasas operating in Punjab province which obviously means a majority of the Jihadis from Punjab are coming from the state school system.” Starting from the Punjab, this evil is eventually exported to other parts of Pakistan through various madrassas located in South and Central Punjab. So, I believe we have to identify and dismantle the brains of extremist ideology instead of bombing some groups of the Taliban. Unless that is done, the more Taliban you kill in KP and Federally Administered Tribal Areas(FATA), the more young people get recruited from the Punjab.

Institutional support for the Taliban should stop first. The army should abandon its “double game” The army, on its part, is unlikely to completely stop supporting the Taliban and other extremist groups as long as it presents India as our “enemy”. The army keeps these groups as strategic assets in order to gain “strategic depth” inside Afghanistan. If we do not overcome our insecurity, we will not be able to clean Pakistan from Taliban for the next several decades.

The Taliban, formerly known as the Mujahideen, were initially created in1980s to combat the Soviets but after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Pakistan retained these Jihadists to bleed India. That policy backfired and today we are bleeding more than India. We have clearly fallen in the pit we prepared for India.

اپنے اپنے کاندھوں پر سب اپنی اپنی لاش اٹھائیں….آو چلو تنھا یو جائیں ~عبیداللہ علیم

There are more Taliban sitting in Punjab than Waziristan.

Since the recruitment centers for these militant groups are in the Punjab, killing some in Waziristan will pave the way for fresh recruits from the Punjab to join the ranks of the Taliban. Do we have the courage to raid or bomb the Taliban hideouts in the Punjab? Before condemning the Taliban, we all have to check our own homes, families and friends to see if there are Taliban activists or sympathizers hiding among them.

The T.T.P. also enjoys support from some sections of the Pakhtun population. At the same time, I have seen poor Pakhtun citizens who have simultaneously suffered because of T.T.P. terror and brutal army operations which displaced millions of people from their homes. Those responsible for the miseries of the victims have not been brought to justice yet. What we are seeing today in Pakistan is actually the outcome of the Punjabi version of Islam. The Punjabi Taliban is responsible for spreading extremism to societies, like the Pakhtuns, which were previously oblivious to such tendencies and patterns of behavior.

According to some estimates, around 2.4 million children study in Deobandi religious schools where they are indoctrinated to become supporters of and activists for the Taliban. The 84 percent of the youth studying at public schools barely thinks on secular lines. Most of the youth is a victim of state-sponsored propaganda that promotes a militant version of Islam. This ideology has even trickled down to middle class Punjabis who are often seen on social media subscribing to the extremist version of Islam. They also seem to endorse the same system for Pakistan that is championed by the Taliban.

We have to understand that whatever is happening today is the consequence of our disastrous policies of the past. So, it is not possible to eliminate this menace overnight. The Taliban are not a mere group of people but a mindset that has penetrated in our society. There are no shortcuts or temporary solutions to this challenge. The civilian government should lead the war against extremism and the army’s influence on country’s domestic and foreign policies should be significantly curtailed. A counter-extremism policy should not focus on only one group and spare the other.