Daily Times

The rules of the game have definitely changed. Despite a reassuring and befitting response from our armed forces, the very fact that not one, not two, but three highly coordinated attacks were launched in Balochistan is enough reason for the state to realise that the flames of militancy have long crossed our backyard and are having a frolic on their way to the heartland.

If terrorists could use rockets and cutthroat weaponry merely 70 kilometres away from the seat of the government, what’s to stop them from setting the stage for an even gorier spectacle? As if attacks on law enforcement agencies had not made a menacing statement, these groups are now turning towards civilian targets. Nevertheless, the brutality of this offensive, especially the bit about capturing houses and taking families hostages, does carry a glimmer of silver lining.

With the covers pulled off the nefarious tactics, the ordinary men and women would be in a far stronger position to decide whether to cheer for organisations that treat them as mere pawns in the power struggle or to sit with their own government and deliberate upon their demands. It goes without saying that winning trust and confidence is a two-way street. For all those politicians jumping on the Baloch terrain to promise them heavens, feel-good declarations, hollow lipservice and some face-saving superficial measures would not hold anymore. Whoever wishes to abide by the constitution deserves to be heard and accorded all those rights guaranteed by their constitution. Yet, those who wish to tear apart the writ of the state and threaten to chop up the country in parts of their liking deserve to be turned into an example.

At present, Balochistan (and all of Pakistan, for that matter) needs a single-point agenda: security. Although a comprehensive sanitation process is already underway, no outfit, whether militant or secessionist, can be allowed to wage a war against us in our own homeland. Considering the list of attackers released by the Baloch Liberation Army, our security apparatus would have to upgrade its fighting mechanisms.

We are not being pitted against innocent, impressionable minds. With more and more well-educated and well-versed-with-technology soldiers joining their ranks, Pakistan is being forced to fight this war for its stability on multiple fronts: on the ground, underground and inside minds. *