The targeting of both the Awami National Party (ANP) and young Pashtun leaders continues. This week saw the assassination of Ibrar Khalil. He was gunned down along with his nephew. Khalil was the party candidate for the Peshawar PK-74 by-poll scheduled for next month. Thus far, no group has claimed responsibility for the twin-murders. Though in the run-up to the July elections, militants engaged in a murderous campaign against the ANP. Indeed, senior party leader Haroon Bilour was killed in a suicide blast that left 21 dead just two weeks before voting. His father, Bashir Ahmed Bilour, met the same fate some six years earlier. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) owned both attacks. In fact, the ANP lost hundreds of party workers and supporters ahead of the 2013 polls as the TTP targeted its rallies as well as those of the PPP and MQM. The militants waged a bloody war of retribution against those insufficiently insubordinate to go ahead and participate in what the group denounced as western-style democracy. Which is, of course, is another way of terming the system of parliamentary representation ‘un-Islamic’. It now falls to the PTI government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to beef up security ahead of the October 14 by-election. It must similarly spearhead the necessary calls for justice. Just as it did in the Mashal Khan murder case. And when it came to standing with the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) as the latter protested the ongoing killing of their community at the hands of militants and law enforcement agents alike. The provincial set-up should therefore as a matter of urgency consult the ANP as well as others parties and the military establishment to provide a security roadmap for next month’s polls and beyond. Tackling the home-grown militant threat must also top the agenda. This is no time for political point-scoring. * Published in Daily Times, September 7th 2018.