Daily Times

I had a fairly normal childhood like many Pakistani children. I was born in a generation that was regularly taught that all ailing problems of Pakistan were due to corrupt politicians and whenever the army would come into power again, things would just magically start to fall into place. Yes, I am of the generation that grew up admiring khaki uniforms and watching Sunahrey Din and Alpha Bravo Charlie. Then, of course, came the time when the army did take over the country and I saw people smiling and distributing sweets.

So did things start to magically start falling into place? Well, not exactly. In fact, shortly occurred an event that for the first time in my life made me feel unpatriotic, at least from the point of view of the state narrative. After a couple of months of the military coup, an Indian plane was hijacked by terrorists demanding the release of Maulana Masood Azhar. Throughout, PTV kept on pumping the state narrative into its audience that Pakistan or any of its state or non-state actors had nothing to do with it and the Indians were just feeling the backlash of their approach towards Kashmir by the Kashmiris themselves. I bought that argument. Imagine my shock when a few weeks after Azhar’s release, I found out via newspapers that not only did the Maulana come to Karachi after his release but was announcing his own organisation Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM).

The goals of the organisation apparently were to free Kashmir, bringing an end to the Indian tyranny. His exact words were: “I have come here because this is my duty to tell you that Muslims should not rest in peace until we have destroyed America and India.” Ok, so maybe it was just more than about Kashmir.

JeM flourished in southern Punjab, while Azhar himself started giving fiery sermons in a Bahawalpur seminary, which not just included the ‘evils’ of the India, American and Jewish lobbies, but his interesting takes on other sects as well, Barelvi Sunni and Shi’as in particular. Southern Punjab, of course, is the same area that had been the hub of other sectarian outfits for many years, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) among them, with Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) giving them a political cover. One thing to understand regarding all these different outfits is that they are brainwashed with the same type of hate literature against non-Muslims and all other sects that do not agree with their ideology. Also members of such groups have a history of transfer of people from one lashkar to another.

When General (Retd) Pervez Musharraf initiated a halfhearted crackdown against different jihadist groups after US pressure post the attack on the Indian parliament, many such groups eventually formed into the Punjabi Taliban in alliance with the members of the TTP and al Qaeda. During the Taliban massacre of Mazar-e-Sharif, reports emerged of members of the SSP participating alongside the Taliban against the Afghan Hazara Shia population. The Iranian consulate also came under attack resulting in the death of one journalist and eight diplomats.

These groups at the micro level shared the same ideology for a long time. In the form of the Punjabi Taliban, the TTP found a most destructive ally and for years groups like the LeJ, Harkatul-Jehad-al Islami and JeM were involved in most of the terrorist attacks. The attacks escalated when the TTP ended a peace deal after the Laal Masjid operation (which also held many JeM members) and military/police forces were targeted directly. Most prominent being the GHQ attack and Manawan Police Academy attack in 2009.

This is probably the period where our military strategists again started to gather some of the perceived ‘good’ Punjabi Taliban under their protective fold for reasons best known to them. But a fair guess can be made that they hoped those good ones might be able to pacify the ‘bad’ ones. The timeline of events before and after these attacks match the theory. In 2008, Balochistan’s LeJ chapter’s head Usman Ali Kurd managed to escape from a high security zone of the Quetta cantonment. During the GHQ attack, the founder of the LeJ, Malik Ishaq, went to persuade the main attacker Dr Usman, another LeJ member, after he was flown out of jail specifically for this purpose. Dr Usman reportedly after seeing him and Ahmad Ludhianvi (chief of the SSP), said, “I’d have wished to die instead of seeing you here from the GHQ side,” which indicates that he felt betrayed to see his leaders who perhaps at some point had used him and many others like him. One and a half years later, Ishaq was released on the SC’s orders due to ‘lack of evidence’.

Incidentally, the lone suspect who was captured from Manawan police attack site with grenades and ammunition was also set free in June 2010. Manawan is not far from the cantonment and an SSP seminary is there too. During the last couple of years, the SSP has tried to show its street power in populated areas near Manawan like Bedian Road, Bhatta Chowk, RA Bazaar and Nishat Colony by hate-filled wall-chalkings and violent protests against the blasphemous YouTube video last year. All these areas are either near the cantonment or part of it. In the wake of the recent face saving attempts by the PML-N, these chalkings have finally been removed, which indicates the earlier lack of motivation to do so. Ishaq earlier this year had planned to give a sermon in the mosque of the KB colony near the airport and cantonment area, but was arrested on the pretext of hate speech in order to prevent him from speaking in such a prominent place. However, he was released shortly afterwards.

Since the release of Ishaq, attacks on Shi’as have intensified, especially in Balochistan, which witnesses many terrorist incidents on pilgrims going to Iran, the local Shi’a Hazara and non-Hazara population. As indicated in Amir Mir’s report published in a national daily on January 15, 2013, Ishaq established contacts with Usman Kurd in Balochistan. That also explains why the material for the latest blast in Hazara Town was taken from Punjab. However, it does not explain why any of our security agencies failed to apprehend it on its long way to Quetta.

Wajahat S Khan while deconstructing many theories about Quetta’s problems in his op-ed published on February 18, 2013 in a national daily mentions the private confessions of policemen that the “chaps in the Cantt” may be thinking the LeJ is a lot of things but not anti-state; thus there may be a “strategic umbrella tolerance” for the group.

What exactly is anti-state? Perhaps our chaps in the Cantt think anti-state only means those who want to capture barren lands and mountains. One would rather think groups engaged in killing and annihilating families would also be anti-state. Is the purpose of the armed forces not to protect its country’s civilian population?

Thankfully there are voices now being raised in the media. Many anchors and some politicians are openly discussing the Arab world connections with these militant groups and failure of our security forces to control them. As per some analysts, the military is reluctant to initiate any activity against terrorists because it does not have political support. This argument is good but not good enough. While it is true that parties like the PML-N are giving political cover to these terrorists, it does not exempt our military leadership from its duties, and should not be used as an excuse. After all, when have they ever needed political support for kidnapping and killing Baloch nationalists? Don’t they do it when they feel like it anyway?

The writer is a software engineer and he blogs at http://rorolia.wordpress.com. He can be reached at zain.gardezi@gmail.com and on twitter at https://twitter.com/XainGardezi