Daily Times

After a lull of over 15 months, terrorists have hit Lahore once again. A bomb went off at platform number two at the City Railway Station on Tuesday, killing three people on the spot while injuring more than 45 people. The death toll is expected to go up as a nine-year-old child has already breathed his last later in hospital while many others are lying in critical condition. The terrorists have successfully attacked a major target in the provincial capital, a place earlier considered a highly secured area keeping in mind the security measures taken by the security organisations. However, the efficacy of those measures had been lost long ago owing to the general lax attitude of our security outfits, which only make tall claims and beef up security in a reactive manner whenever some terrorist activity takes place but soon after that fall back into their usual laxity and do not perform their duties with responsibility and alertness. Had the issue of security not become a victim of our security services’ characteristic inertia, the tragedy at Lahore City railway station might have been averted. According to reports, all 17 CCTV cameras installed at the station’s premises had been inactive for the last two months due to non-payment of dues to the service provider. Similarly, all the metal detectors and walk-through gates had not been functioning for some time. Even manual checking of people had been stopped. The situation clearly shows the criminal negligence of those responsible for ensuring security at the station. Their neglect of the faulty/inoperative security devices and poor intelligence has cost us many precious lives. After the blast, life in the cultural hub of the country has become even more fraught as the fallout from the blast has appeared in the form of early closure of a cultural festival, which was being celebrated at Minar-e-Pakistan. A report about an unheard of Baloch separatist group, Lashkar-i-Balochistan claiming responsibility for the blast has surfaced. The report lacks credibility and looks more of a red herring attempt to distract and complicate matters further.

Tuesday’s blast has raised a number of questions on the competence, capability and efficiency of our intelligence and security agencies. We are in the middle of an asymmetrical war, a type of conflict in which the enemy is usually at a more advantageous position in terms of initiative. We cannot afford any laxity by the security outfits at any point. We are faced with an enemy that has proved itself an organised and well-coordinated foe. To counter the terrorists’ designs and activities, we ourselves have to be well organised and directed. Regrettably, there is an immense lack of coordination between the federal and provincial governments. There is little or no coordination among their different bodies assigned with the task of ensuring security across the country. It is time that a centralised and well-coordinated body be put in place to jointly fight the menace of terrorism. Our response to terrorism has so far proved to be infected with faults, lacunae and gaps, which need to be brought under serious consideration and filled promptly to formulate a really effective strategy to fight terrorism. The country is under a constant and serious threat of terrorism — a menace which we created since the 1970s and have since some years suffered the blowback from this ill-considered policy. Now sincere efforts are required if we want to control and eliminate this menace.*