Nine people were killed when a suicide bomber rammed a motorcycle into a police car near Balochistan’s Constabulary. Let that sink in. Nine innocent lives lost in just one blink of an eye because of their unimaginable crime: the desire to protect their country and their brethren against nefarious agendas.
While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack just yet, it would not be premature to assume that this is the work of the TTP, whose commanders announced its plans for a March Offensive a few weeks ago.
It wasn’t too long ago that a bomb blast tore through a mosque in Peshawar, killing 101 people, a majority of which were police officers. A similar attack was orchestrated in Karachi, killing four when Taliban militants stormed police headquarters in the country’s largest city. Instead of treating increasing terrorist attacks as an emergency, our politicians are busy posturing for the new election. To make matters worse, we are mired in an unprecedented economic crisis with foreign reserves at an all-time low and stalled negotiations with the IMF.
Our twisted relationship with the Afghan Taliban, who the government has pledged support to despite repeated warnings from countries all across the globe, has only rejuvenated the TTP, which celebrates the group’s victory as its own. It was naive to think, even for a second, that the new regime in Afghanistan would not allow the TTP to use Afghan soil to attack Pakistan.
Even more concerning is that we continue to attempt negotiations with a deadly terrorist organisation that has proven beyond a doubt that it cannot be reasoned with. A legitimate political state that invites terrorists to the table to conduct peace talks is unheard of anywhere in the world, but, apparently, not in the motherland. Unshockingly, the ceasefire fell apart a month after it was drawn up. It is not difficult to see why the talks fell apart-when you negotiate with a rogue militant group, you must also be prepared for the possibility that they won’t follow through.
The state’s rapidly shifting narratives and policies towards the TTP have already created a mountain of confusion for the public. They have also emboldened the TTP’s insurgency, which now behaves like a political stakeholder rather than a militant group. It is high time we develop a consistent approach towards terrorism-force, although necessary, cannot resolve the terrorist threat all by itself. *