Daily Times

Those who fail to learn from their mistakes, succeed to fail. The report is out. And it is saying things many may not want to hear. It will be debated, discussed, and probably dismissed by men in charge. Justice Faez Isa has meticulously gone into many details of the Quetta carnage and blamed the federal and provincial governments for this monumental failure. The response of the government is outrage and a “firm resolve” to fight this report on all forums. This reaction itself is one of the leading root causes of the failure to uproot terror from the country.

The report is a detailed analysis of each part of the incident starting from the background, the murder of Bilal Kasi, Mortuary, Suicide bomber, hospital conditions, governance gaps, NACTA, NAP, as well as recommendations. Like any report, this report will also have its differences and disputes, but to reject a fact-based document as it is placing direct responsibility on the government is itself an admission of failure to improve. But then, history is replete with maltreatment of commission reports. The famous Hamoodur Rehman Commission, the infamous Abbottabad Commission, and the unfortunate Model Town Commission were all exercises in futility. However, the chances are that Faez Isa commission will not go into the political abyss. Firstly, the report is public with immediate effect. Unlike the Baqir Najfi report on Model Town that was leaked and then withdrawn by Chief Minister Punjab and then dismissed, Quetta carnage report is like the genie out of the bottle. Secondly, the opposition is trying to get political mileage on it as they have been demanding more action on National Action Plan. Thirdly, the media and public own up to terrorism as being the main issue and will demand accountability.

Let us move back at the tipping point. Army Public School’s second anniversary took place on 16 December 2014. In these two years, major terrorism incidents have happened in Lahore, in Quetta and Sindh. Each time the reasons are more or less the same. Security lapses, terrorists being supported internally and from across the border, poor coordination, etc. What distinguishes this report from all the other inquiries is that there are some very bold and direct observations. The meeting of a banned organisation’s head with the Minister of Interior and the appointment of the younger brother of minister Abdul Qadir Baluch as health secretary are direct indictments of violation of rules and regulations. Not only to write about it but then to make it public is a serious breach of the rules made by the government where actions highlighting their flaws are severely rebuffed and rejected. The report is not singling out just the government rather clinically dissecting all areas that enabled this tragic disaster.

Justice Faez Isa’s report contains 26 precise findings and 18 very solid recommendations. The report also highlights previous judgements of the Supreme Court instructing government and state institutions that have fallen on deaf ears. The Commission quotes the 2012 Supreme Court ruling asking the federal and Balochistan governments to develop and maintain a databank of perpetrators and suspects of heinous crimes and terrorists organisations, by including their names, aliases, parentage, addresses, photographs, thumb impressions, DNA, telephone numbers, weapons used, particular type of explosive used and their respective modus operandi, which regretfully are still gathering dust in scattered archives.

The role of the agencies, FC, and of course, the no role of NACTA are also highlights of the report. NACTA in the last three and half years has just met once. What has it been doing for the rest of the 41 months, nobody seems to know. Why is the Prime Minister not holding its Board of Governors meeting to ask for its progress? What is the Minister of Interior’s role in making it functional?

The main overarching question is whom to ask these questions? Everybody wants to get a position and everybody wants to be the head of organisations but nobody wants to take responsibility for its performance or lack of it. The original idea of NACTA was to make it an independent authority that will collate and coordinate information vertically and horizontally to prevent isolation of agencies, overlapping and non-sharing of intelligence.

Both the PPP and the PMLN governments refused to make it autonomous and placed it under the Ministry of Interior. By placing it under that ministry, it defeated the very purpose of making an independent Apex organisation that had the power to question all relevant ministries, provinces and intelligence agencies on their conduct and cooperation or the lack of it. Therein lies the problem of redundancy of this organisation which by all accounts will turn into another white elephant that will neither move nor can be moved.

Meanwhile, another report author has been either inspired or instigated to demand action on Abbottabad commission report. Justice Javed Iqbal in a rare tirade said that Abbottabad commission’s findings should be made public and also warned that those conclusions would be such a bombshell that many will not survive. The very fact that Justice Faez Isa’s report has opened a Pandora box is welcome, and more voice should be raised on making these reports public property.

The real test of Quetta carnage report will be once it reaches the Supreme Court. How does the court interpret it; how does the law takes it turn on its findings; and of course, how the government owns up to the final verdict. There is enough damning evidence. One example of that is the outfits that have confessed to attacks have not been included in proscribed list despite the Chief Secretary insisting on their inclusion. Rebutting a vocal Chief Secretary may be easy but will the government be able to deny the justice system of this country? Or it will simply say that meetings with some terrorists detailed in the Commission report do not have a documented trail but are just based on a “parchi” system and thus not liable. The report itself recognises this vast chasm between investigation, interpretation and the will power of the main players to take action on it. The concluding sentence of the report says it all “things cannot go on as they have been. Without top tier accountability, it is unlikely the systemic change will be possible”.

The writer is a columnist and analyst and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com