The second Peshawar - Pak anti-terror net has many escape routes

On Wednesday Peshawar was forced, once again, to feel the pain and stress of another terror attack in an educational institution. The only difference between the student victims of Wednesday and those in December 2014 was their age. The sight of endless rows of tiny coffins in 2014 was a turning point in Pakistan's resolve to meet the terrorists head on. The political class across provinces sat with the Centre and other power centres to adopt a coordinated response to detect, fight and prosecute terrorists. In its one year of existence, the National Action Plan (NAP)’s managers display impressive statistics — 50,000 Afghan refugees expelled, about 200 clerics imprisoned, billions of rupees in frozen funds and antecedents of all madarsa students verified. 

 

Of the NAP’s 20 clauses, half relate to states, eight to various ministries, including that of external affairs, and two to military and intelligence services. This is exactly the type of synergy on terror between the federal and state governments that was hoped for from the National Investigation Agency. This all-India agency was created after several major terror incidents culminated with the Mumbai attacks. By Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s admission, the NIA is still being equipped with the obligatory set of tools seven years after being set up. The NAP-enabled alacrity of the Pakistani army in quickly hunting down the attackers needs to be replicated in India without another attack becoming a catalyst for change.

 

The second massacre in Peshawar has led to considerable introspection in Pakistan but few blamed India, although Defence Minister Manmohar Parrikar had recently provided an opening. Yet NAP notwithstanding, Pakistan cannot explain how Jaish-e-Mohammed and other self-professed militant groups remained unaffected by the ban on similar outfits. As a sovereign state, it is entirely up to Pakistan to work out the environment that will put an end to its practice of safe havens to radicals as a strategic rain check. The failure to abandon this policy of terror will not persuade the international community to take seriously Islamabad’s claim of itself being a victim of terror.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/editorials/the-second-peshawar/186346.html