Daily Times

While the whole world is engrossed in the Panama leaks, in Pakistan the ‘Chhotu leaks’ are finally spilling over the no-go domain. For decades terrorism in Pakistan is associated, mainly, with Waziristan and other tribal areas. While every area of the north has been dissected and debated to hunt down terrorists, terrorism originating from south Punjab has been a hush-hush topic. It has never truly caught political, media and international attention the way cross-border terrorism has. Thus the welcome breakthrough is that finally we are debating, writing and doing something about what is perhaps equally if not more dangerous in its depth and scale than many other terror hubs. While FATA has been a story of insurgency and terrorism, tales from south Punjab are much more horrific. When you know, accept and target a certain area for combat action, some progress will follow. The danger lies with the unknown evil that is protected to the extent that it becomes a Frankenstein’s monster for its own protectors. As per reports, the Chhotu gang is just the tip of the iceberg, as the real gangs entrenched in the south are far more lethal than terrorists in the north.

The stereotypical image of a terrorist is of a tall, bony, long-haired, Kalashnikov-toting man, appearing from and disappearing in mountains. The southern Punjab terrorist is disguised as a religious zealot, with a heavy beard and heavier belly, blending in as a local politician. We all lament the state of economy in FATA, but South Punjab is worse. The extent of poverty in south Punjab beats all provinces put together. Many villages in south Punjab make border areas look more civilised. The government writ is non-existent, and if you think Mullah Fazalullah taking over Swat was the ultimate lawlessness, there are some areas in Rajanpur that are completely out of the bounds of law. With some of the most notorious militant groups — Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Jundullah, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Sunni Tehreek, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), Sipah-e-Muhammad, Tehreek-e-Jafaria, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) etc. — residing and operating from this part of Punjab, south Punjab could be labelled the ‘terrorist capital’ of Pakistan. Punjabi Taliban and the JeM with its headquarters in Bahawalpur are evidence of one of the real sources of unending terrorism in Pakistan going unchecked. Sargodha district is a famous recruitment centre that hires militants and then sends them to Waziristan for training.

The question is why then south Punjab operators have gone untargeted, while their counterparts in the west have been the focus of attention? The major reason is that these organisations have learned from political parties in Sindh. Political parties in Sindh have militant wings to carry out their nefarious activities, and terrorist organisations in Punjab have political wings to protect their militant offensives. These groups have made their own narrative to form a vote bank in the area. While in FATA and other areas the narrative was anti-American jihad, the narrative in south Punjab has been the sectarian jihad, which resulted in many massacres of Shia and other communities. Since both south Punjab and FATA have outdone each other on poverty and illiteracy, the ability of the self-made ‘religious’ narrative to pervade brains was relatively easy.

These groups co-existed with great collaboration between south Punjab and North Waziristan. The western border groups were, according to many reports, facilitated by foreign hands and agencies, and south Punjab groups were facilitated by vote-seeking governments. There have been many reports on the ‘close’ relationship of Punjab government with the heads of the Sipah-e-Sahaba and LeJ. The former interior minister, Rehman Malik, has been quoted as saying that Malik Ishaq was paid a stipend by the Punjab government while in jail. And who can forget the welcome Rana Sanaullah gave to Malik Ishaq when he was released. Seat adjustments and mutual cooperation deals have been reported many times in the media, but there has never been anybody to really question and prove this murderous alliance. The simple entry point from Punjab to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and vice versa is from Dera Ismail Khan into Dera Ghazi Khan, making to-and-fro movement of militants unimpeded.

This coexistence was all going fine until Mr Sharif had to face Mr Sharif. The Army Public School massacre created ultra shock waves, and brought all parties together on one page with a comprehensive National Action Plan to go to all lengths to remove terrorism from Pakistan. These plans have been made in the past too, and General Pervez Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari have successfully dismissed them with ‘political acumen and sagacity’. Not so with Raheel Sharif. He has relentlessly pursued the activation of this plan despite huge resistance from the government.

Sindh operations have become a bone of contention between the MQM, PPP and the army firstly, and now between the PPP and PML-N. The PPP has been demanding a similar operation in Punjab for a long time, but the PML-N kept on denying the existence of terrorist nurseries in the area until the Lahore blast happened. The anger of the public, once again, forced Punjab government to retreat, but Punjab government still insisted that they have a trained CTD counter terrorism department that will trace, hunt, and finish terrorists. But then the Chhotu gang happened.

The Punjab government in competition with the Zarb-e-Azb operation of the army announced the Zarb-e-Ahan operation by the police and CTD. Despite the fact that in six previous operations, the Punjab police had failed to capture them, they went ahead to fight this gang. Unfortunately, many law enforcement personnel lost their lives, and 24 of them were captured by the gangsters they had gone after. Ghulam Rasool alias Chhotu’s story of being hand in glove with a local MNA, being booked on fake cases and remaining in police torture is a familiar tale of how our police has produced more hardened criminals than captured them. As in the past, when we have lost countless lives, an army operation becomes the last resort. The question is: why does the Punjab government incur huge losses of lives and image before seeking help from the Rangers or army? The answer may be that just as in Sindh where some captured target killers turned into whistle blowers there may be fear of the same happening in Punjab.

Who knows, as the Chhotu gang has surrendered to the army, the leakage will start. Capturing one gang may be not much of an achievement but the bigger achievement would be to have whistle-blowing, ‘Punjab leaks’ through them, identifying the people in government and state institutions of being facilitators of terrorism. That is why the time for a real National Action Plan to eradicate terrorism from Pakistan may be never more opportune than now.

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