Pakistan: 'Raiwind ' - Terrorists close to PM's House

That the government would literally find itself surrounded by militants is not entirely surprising. For far too long, the PML-N has been in denial about the growing strength of militant organisations in Punjab. Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif infamously asked the TTP to spare the province because it had no grudge with the militant group. No longer can it bury its head in the sand. The operation in Raiwind, which escalated into a 10-hour gun battle, shows that militants are plotting to carry out attacks in Punjab. The apparent target of the militants in Raiwind was the prime minister’s house; and all the militants apparently belonged to a local outfit. The government has always treated militant groups in Punjab as separate from the TTP; some reports even suggesting it had in the past sought their support. It is no longer possible to draw a distinction between the various militant groups. All of them share the same aims and propensity for violence. The military operation in North Waziristan will never achieve lasting success if it isn’t backed up with police action in Punjab and other militant hotbeds like Karachi.

Law-enforcement agencies will point to the operation in Raiwind as a success but there are many questions that need to be answered. How, for example, where militants plotting so close to the prime minister’s estate and yet were undetected for so long? We also need to be told which of the many militant outfits the plotters belonged to. The modus operandi of Punjabi militant groups has generally been to carry out sectarian attacks, especially in Balochistan. If they are now directly taking on the government, as the audacious plan to attack the PM House would suggest, that calls for a change in how the government deals with them. Not only should all such militant groups be immediately outlawed, the government will also have to seize their assets and arrest their members to neutralise them. This should serve as a reminder that the militancy problem is not just restricted to the tribal areas but has spread throughout the country. The Punjab-centric PML-N has fallen prey to the unfortunate tendency to treat Fata and its people as somehow foreign without realising that militancy is a country-wide phenomenon. Hopefully now, instead of just relying on air strikes and ground troops in the tribal areas, the government will tackle the poisonous ideology that has permeated society.