Within twenty days, three terrorist incidents took place in metropolis Karachi that resulted in deaths of six persons, including three Chinese nationals. In the first incident, a female suicide bomber, affiliated with Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), detonated herself, a rare phenomenon, which resulted in death of four persons including three Chinese. It was a planned attack on the Chinese nationals working at Confucius Centre at Karachi University.
In the second incident one person was killed and nine others injured in a blast in Saddar area. An outlawed nationalist party, Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army, claimed the responsibility. In the third incident, a motorcycle bomb blast (MCIED), targeting a police van, in Kharadar area, resulted in the death of a woman and injuries to fourteen others including three policemen.
The situation is worrisome for the law enforcement agencies and the government. The statements of the senior police officers smacked of nervousness. DIG Sharjeel Kharal said the police were trying to maintain law and order within the available resources. Did he mean that the incident could be prevented if police had more resources? Was it the right time to lament on paucity of resources?
Police and law enforcement agencies cannot stop this sort of terrorist acts in open and unguarded places like markets and roads unless and until they have close liaison with the intelligence agencies. There are no reports that intelligence agencies fore-warned the police and LEAs of the likelihood of these incidents. The glaring flaw is visible that intelligence agencies, as usual, have not made ingress in the terrorist organisations which could enable them to foil their plans.
Police sources saw resemblance in the last two incidents. SRA claimed the responsibility of the earlier incident but has not issued any statement on the later Kharadar incident in which a passerby woman was killed whose unsuspecting young child cried on her dead body in a futile bid to wake her up. This footage went viral and stirred the sensibilities of general public across Pakistan. SRA might have refrained from claiming the responsibility of this act to avoid flak from the public.
In the initial analysis report the LEAs have pointed out that TTP, BLA and SRA have joined hands to carry out these three terrorist attacks and blamed the Indian intelligence agency RAW ( Research & Analysis Wing) to have facilitated and probably funded the perpetrators. Indian intelligence agencies have a history of supporting terrorists and insurgents in Pakistan. Their support to MQM Altaf, TTP and separatists in Balochistan is a known secret. Kulbhushan Jadhav, a serving officer of Indian Navy, who joined RAW and operated in Pakistan, is still in Pakistan’s custody. So the fresh allegation of Indian involvement in Karachi incidents might be true but it does not absolve the intelligence agencies of their responsibility to foil the evil designs and plans of the insurgents and terrorists beforehand.
The efficiency of the investigating agencies is appreciable to have reached the conclusion within days. Nevertheless, the intelligence agencies should have been aware of the growing proximity between the three terrorist groups and their tentative plans to strike in Karachi or elsewhere. If intelligence failure becomes a habit, their efficiency must be questioned.
Did any intelligence agency, ISI or IB, issued a credible A-1 or A-2 threat alert in this regard? If at all it was issued and police failed to beef up the security, it speaks volumes of the disconnect between them. The propensity to heap responsibility of terrorist attacks on RAW or some other foreign hostile agency does not serve the purpose.
Karachi is the natural target of terrorist groups who want to destabilise the economic hub of Pakistan. Terrorist attack in the metropolis makes a bigger news too. The local terrorists and foreign facilitators have been targeting CPEC and Chinese workers for quite some time now. The killing of nine engineers and workers at Dasu Dam was resented by the Chinese government. The cause of resentment was apparent slackness on part of the security apparatus that should have ensured fool proof security of the Chinese as per the threat level. The new Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif immediately took notice of this situation and reminded the security authorities of the robust security arrangements he had devised for the security of the Chinese in Punjab when he was the chief minister Punjab.
IB and ISI must work on two tiers. One, enhance close collaboration with the intelligence agencies of Iran, Afghanistan and China to share information about the militants of BLA, TTP etc operating from across the border. Second, internally, coordination among the concerned departments and agencies must be upto mark. Relevant laws must be amended to enhance the chances of awarding sentences to the culprits through courts.
The counter terrorism experts must be aware of the change in terrorists’ modus operandi to strike on soft targets in big cities. They should revisit their strategies and approaches to tackle the new challenges posed by the tenacious terrorists.