Daily Times

LAHORE: On January 19, Pakistani police registered a case against unidentified perpetrators of the January 2 terrorist attack on the Indian air force base in Pathankot.

The first information report (FIR) is based on initial evidence, such as the Pakistani mobile phone numbers the attackers were said be in contact with. Based on a formal complaint by a deputy secretary at the Interior Ministry, the counterterrorism department of Punjab police registered the case in Gujranwala. Some of those numbers were traced to the border district of Sialkot, which falls in the department’s central Punjab precinct headquartered in Gujranwala.

The report does not name the leaders of Jaish-e-Muhammad – a militant organisation that India alleges was behind the attack. But days before the move, a crackdown was reported in the group’s southern Punjab stronghold of Bahawalpur.

While south Punjab has often been cited as a breeding ground of extremism, reports of similar activity in the rest of the province is for many a matter of concern. On January 14, a madrassa linked to the banned outfit was closed down in a raid in Daska near Sialkot, and more than a dozen people were arrested.

Sialkot is also the city where the counterterrorism department detained eight suspects on December 28, believed to be members of the Islamic State. Three of the men had received military training.

Nadeem Afzal Chan is a politician from Mandi Bahauddin, a district that borders Gujranwala. “In my constituency in Mandi Bahauddin, and other districts of Punjab, banned militant groups are openly collecting donations and recruiting young people. Nobody is stopping them,” he told me. He believes the counterterrorism department has not taken any major steps against militant groups since the prime minister announced his National Action Plan against terrorism. “Punjab police is politicised, and it doesn’t have the capacity and the equipment to deal with terrorists,” he says. “What will they do with a couple of batons and a rifle with a single magazine, and nine liters of petrol a day?”

He believes there is a need for operations by the military or the Rangers. Mr Chan belongs to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which governs the Sindh province and has raised concerns about the jurisdiction of the paramilitary force leading an operation in the provincial capital Karachi. For many, his statement has a political context.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah believes there is no need for a Rangers operation in the province, and such an operation is not being considered. “Punjab is effectively fighting the war against terrorism, and all the targets are being met,” he said. “The counterterrorism department is effective and dedicated.” He does not see why the opposition keeps insisting on paramilitary involvement. “No cities in Punjab have the kind of law and order problems seen in Sindh and Karachi.”

But the People’s Party is not alone in bringing up the subject. On November 26, in a meeting of an ‘Apex Committee’ to oversee the implementation of the National Action Plan, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif was requested to deploy Rangers in the southern Punjab towns of Rajanpur, Rahimyar Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan, and in tri-border areas with Sindh and Balochistan, according to a military source who was present in the meeting. On January 13, when the same committee met to discuss the Pathankot incident, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was told that “the deployment of Rangers in Punjab is important to deal with terrorists effectively”. On February 4, during a briefing to the prime minister at the ISI headquarters, the military stressed the need for Rangers and military operations in the entire country, especially in Punjab, a source present at the meeting said.

Defence analyst Air Marshal (retired) Shahid Latif says there are terrorist hideouts in Punjab, but they’re keeping a low profile in the wake of the Rangers operation in Sindh. But that does not mean there should be no action against them, he says.

“The tri-border areas where the terrorists are hiding belong to three provinces, and not just to Punjab,” says Rana Sanaullah. “We may seek help from the Rangers when we carry out an operation in those areas.” He says the province has a 1,000 strong force to carry out such an operation, which would require the consent of Sindh and Balochistan. The Rangers would back them up, he says. “The operation will start once the base of the attack is finalised.”

There are more than 13,000 madrassas in Punjab, according to government figures, about 7,000 of which are in south Punjab. The southern towns of Multan, Muzaffargarh and Rahimyar Khan are among the top four cities with most madrassas.  North Punjab has approximately 2,000 seminaries, and more than 4,000 are located in central Punjab.

None of them are involved in militant training, says RanaSanaullah. “We have geo-tagged all 13,782 of the madrassas and have all their data.”

The National Assembly was told recently that the province has closed down two madrassas for suspected illegal activities. The Sindh province shut down 167 seminaries with suspected links to militant activity.

“The government is not ready to admit that there is a problem in south Punjab and other districts of the province, although we have reliable information from intelligence sources that Punjab is the breeding ground of all the leading sectarian organizations,” says veteran journalist Zahid Hussain. “No one is telling them to close down all the seminaries,” he says, but there is a need to dismantle all terrorist infrastructure and all the institutions that promote sectarian violence. “The National Action Plan cannot be limited to Karachi and some parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” says ZahidHussain. “It gives the impression that Punjab is treated differently.”

Defence analyst Faraz Darvesh says there is enough data available to conclude that banned sectarian organisations in south Punjab, such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, have been providing logistical support to Al Qaeda and Taliban. Sipah-e-Sahaba also has strong footprints in rural Sindh. But leaders previously associated with the groups are taking part in mainstream politics. In the past, Rana Sanaullah has himself been accused of campaigning with a sectarian political leader.

But for many, a crackdown against Lashkar-e-Jhangvi that included the killing of all its key leaders in a reported gunfight with the police in July last year dispelled the impression that the Punjab government had a soft corner for them. In August, Col (r) Shuja Khanzada, who was Punjab’s home minister at that time, was killed in a revenge suicide attack in his home town Attock.

Former police officer Muhammad Ali Nekokara believes paramilitary forces are not a long-term substitute for police. “It is important to rely on police rather than paramilitary forces for policing,” he says. “But it is also important to make police credible and efficient.” That requires operational space, budgetary support, capacity building, and a good recruitment policy. Paramilitary forces will continue to remain popular until the police is made more effective and its public image is improved.  “Otherwise, it will become impossible not to concede to the demands of giving policing functions to Rangers in more areas of the country.”

The role of the police and intelligence agencies is crucial in counter-terrorism, Nekokara says. “A robust integrated collaboration among police, the Intelligence Bureau and the ISI at all levels is important.” He suggests setting up what he calls Intelligence Sharing and Analysis Centers.

This news report originally appeared in The Friday Times