Daily Times Editorial March 10, 2010

Our terrorism travails

The first suicide bomb blast of 2010 in Lahore and the second in the residential area of Model Town in the last two years killed at least 13 people and injured close to 100 on Monday. The attack was carried out with a vehicle laden with at least 600 pounds of explosives near a Special Investigations Unit (SIU) detention and interrogation centre. On March 11, 2008, a similar attack had occurred on a similar facility in the same vicinity. This present blast was so severe that it killed and injured residents yards away from the site, demolished the two-storey SIU building, shattered about 40 houses completely and partially damaged another 150. Losses of property alone are estimated to run into the millions. Schools were closed in the aftermath and panicked parents rushed to collect their children, some of whom were seen frightened and weeping. The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has not only claimed responsibility for the atrocity, it has threatened more such attacks through its 3,000 suicide bombers at the ready unless the military operations in FATA and the northwest are halted and the recent crackdown against the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda leadership inside the country is stopped.
The incident has thrown into sharp relief once more the callousness towards the lives, safety and property of citizens of this benighted country. The roots of our terrorism travails can of course be traced to the last four decades old policy of interference through jihadi proxies in neighbouring Afghanistan, and the three decades old jihad in Indian Held Kashmir. Astute observers have been warning over the years that this ‘forward policy’ and the pursuit of the holy grail of so-called ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan would one day result in a severe blowback and backlash at the hands of the same Frankenstein’s monsters being nurtured in the name of jihad. That day has by now arrived with a vengeance. For some time now, and especially since the last two years, the hapless citizens of this country have been the victims of the barbarians who claim the mantle of true Islam but in practice are nothing but fascist thugs and ruthless terrorists and killers of innocent people, not even sparing young children dragooned into the ranks of their suicide squads to act as human bombs. Lahore alone has suffered at least 20 such attacks in the past two years, with the loss of almost 200 lives and millions of property damage. If similar losses are totted up for the country as a whole, it indicates nothing short of a calamity heaped on the heads of our people through no fault of their own. Unfortunately, though our military and security forces have given sacrifices on the battlefield and in our cities in the struggle against the terrorists, it is the innocent citizens who have suffered the most, such being the indiscriminate nature of terrorism per se, whose ends justify all and every means. Neither yesterday, when the whole paradigm of export of jihad as a foreign policy tool was being formulated away from the gaze of an unsuspecting public, nor now when the consequences of such shortsighted and disastrous policies are well and truly upon us, are the citizens and their lives, safety and properties centre-stage in the authorities’ calculations.
Take the case of second time hit Model Town Lahore. Since the first attack on an SIU facility (a mere stone’s throw from Monday’s blast) on March 11, 2008, the residents and members of the Model Town Society have been agitating and writing letters to the authorities to shift these detention and interrogation centres, of which there are still reportedly some 12 existing even after this incident, to other places since they present targets for the terrorists and threaten the safety of residents of the area, apart from their (wholly inadequate as it turns out) security measures making life hell for the residents of the neighbourhood. The authorities’ failure to respond to this genuine concern is nothing short of criminal. As though to sprinkle salt into the wounds of the victims, the aftermath of this as other such incidents witnesses ritual condemnations by politicians and officials, promises of compensation (some victims of the earlier Model Town blast are still waiting for this promised manna from heaven), and vows to bring the perpetrators to justice, all of which ring out loud and clear, signifying however, only sound and fury, nothing more. Then there is the cast of usual suspects, the ubiquitous ‘foreign hand’ beloved of our interior minister and others leading the list. There are also the usual arguments trotted out by our gifted Rehman Malik about the ‘desperation’ of the terrorists in carrying out such actions because their back has been broken in FATA. Of what use or consolation are the reiterations of such homilies to the victims or their families? If anything, their overuse after every such incident or security lapse is now arousing anger amongst the citizenry, which demands that someone be held accountable for the pattern of security breaches again and again. Nor is there much purchase for politicians trying to play politics with and score points against each other through these tragedies, which practice is only going to alienate the citizens even more, if that is still possible.
Basta (enough)! The security units in residential areas must be shifted posthaste and without prevarication, delay or red tape out of residential areas. Security personnel in charge of pre-empting such incidents who fail to act despite (as in this case) intelligence warnings of an impending attack must be held accountable. Compensation must not be avoided through bureaucratic manoeuvring. Otherwise heads should roll. The citizens of this country, who neither authored the mistaken and disastrous jihad export policies of the past nor are responsible for their present fallout, but are the main victims of their blowback, deserve much better or their rising anger could produce unforeseen consequences for all in authority.