Daily Times

Lawmakers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly have rightly questioned the effectiveness of measures taken against militant outfits in the province. The latest attack targeting Peshawar’s Agriculture University that claimed nine lives and other attacks that took place in recent months are indeed a question mark on the civil and the military leadership’s claims regarding progress made in our fight against terrorism.

That the terrorists have retained the ability to carry out such attacks indicates that a lot more needs to be done to build capacity of our law enforcement agencies.

The civil-military leadership of the country has time and again used platitudes such as ‘terrorists’ backbone has been broken’ and that they are ‘on the run’.

There have been several terror attacks in Peshawar and Quetta in the past few months. The loopholes in the performance of the relevant departments have been pointed out several times with little impact. The recent terror attacks show that there is lack of proper coordination between investigative and intelligence agencies. Yet it appears that no steps are being taken to improve the process of intelligence sharing which is a crucial element in stopping the possibility of terror attacks. It should be investigated as to what is causing consistent intelligence failures and security lapses. Heads need to roll.

Also problematic is the government’s utter failure to implement National Action Plan (NAP). If the sympathisers of terror continue to operate with impunity, the militants will eventually get a chance to reorganise themselves and it would end up compromising the gains made in anti-terror operations.

PTI chairman Imran Khan’s support to self-declared father of Taliban Maulana Samiul Haq is an example of how political leaders are themselves violating the NAP. Two terrorists involved in the latest Peshawar University attack had reportedly graduated from Samiul Haq’s seminary Darul Uloom Haqqania. Therefore, lawmakers of KP should also demand Imran Khan to stop supporting facilitators and sympathisers of terrorists. Giving political legitimacy to sympathisers of terrorist groups is tantamount to insulting the blood of the countless victims of terror.  *

Published in Daily Times, December 12^th 2017.