PPP Senator lashes at national security policy, says banned outfits reincarnated under other names protected by government

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PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar has said that the national security policy announced last month was thoughtlessly stitched together through copy paste that was not only seriously flawed but also failed to take into account a fundamental threat to internal national security.

He was addressing a seminar on the national security policy in Islamabad that was participated by representatives of political parties, academia, media persons and civil society persons. The policy claims to address issues ranging from NCTA to madrassah reforms and from developing a national narrative to bringing all 33 intelligence agencies under one roof but fails to take cognizance of the grave threat emanating from the perceived state policy of running with the hair and hunting with the hound with respect to some militant outfits in the hope to use them for advancing undeclared foreign policy and security objectives.

The recent emergence of Moulana Masood Azhar of the banned outfit Jaish Muhammad at a book launch in AJK and hurling warnings to India would suggest that the unwritten state policy was still being pursued. The state also seems to tolerate the JuD which is the reincarnation of militant outfit of Lashkare Tayeba of Hafiz Saeed, he said.

The policy fails to address the issue of banned militant groups which have re-appeared under different names and as charities. The declaration by the interior minister that it had been decided to hit the militants’ headquarters in North Waziristan for every sing of terrorism while leaving extremists in south Punjab and elsewhere was a reflex based response that turned a blind eye to some categories of militants.

He said that when the militants struck recently the state responded by attacking bases in NWA but no action is taken against sectarian and militant outfits in other parts of the country and asked why?

He said that the Punjab government even supported through budgetary grants to some banned outfits resurrected as charities. He said that the policy had set up an ambitious target of mainstreaming nearly twenty three thousand madrassas throughout the country in just one year whereas the task had eluded us for the past over one decade. He said that according to the policy document the record of several thousand madrassah registered in KPK and Sindh prior to 2005 was not available and asked how the seminaries would be streamlined in one year when their record could not be tabulated during the past decade. He said that the policy recognized the need for border management with Afghanistan but has kept the foreign office was not even listed in the group of various ministries and departments assigned to work towards it. Surprisingly the policy framers did not even bother to find out that it was an issue that concerns most the Foreign Office.

There is great deal of skepticism about how the government will go about its strategy to make the ISI cooperate with the directorate of internal security within NCTA when the ISI is not even represented on its executive board. He said that the rehabilitation of terrorism victims is brushed aside as an ‘on going’ exercise without creating the much needed Victim Support Fund.

The policy promises plethora of legal reforms within 6 months disregarding the fact that how it can be done by a government that has failed to enact a single legislation through Parliament during the last ten months and relies solely on ordinances. Most disturbingly the policy document mentioned the hitherto unheard of role of ISI as also law enforcement in addition to intelligence gathering. Is the ISI being given law enforcement role without even subjecting the agency itself to any law and without specifying as to which laws will be enforced by it. He said that the thought of ISI being given law enforcement role without parliamentary oversight was most disturbing.

He said that any internal security policy will be meaningless if it was not synchronized with the foreign policy and asked whether the quid pro quo for 1.5 billion dollar windfall in national kitty was engaging in a civil strife in a Middle Eastern country that would have severe backlash on the nation’s internal security.