Terror Unlimited

The other day, I broke into callous laughter when my friend told me that there have been about one thousand confirmed cases of Dengue fever in Punjab. Awhile later I apologized for laughing off such a serious issue. Actually, I am emotionally numb … if that could define my state. I Hope that God’s wrath doesn’t fall on Punjab because we, the inhabitants of NWFP, are truly suffering from the wrath of militants and other criminal elements, terror unlimited as I call it.

I remember it was one breezy day in the spring of 1997. We were sitting on our friend’s veranda when he out of the blue remarked, “I fear the day when Taliban would take over this entire province.” Taliban?” We expressed our evident ignorance. We knew that they were the militia force who had taken over the Kabul recently. That was it. We were unaware of their dogmas, future plans and ferocity for that matter. That friend of ours didn’t elaborate much but today when I look back and ponder on his statement I feel he was a true civil servant in the making. His fear is today’s bitter reality.

Everything was fine for the dwellers of the big cities of NWFP until Taliban were restricted to the tribal belt that is said to be their haven and breeding ground. But in the recent years they spread all across the province like an incurable disease. The reality struck really hard when in the wee hours of 25th August this year, the Government Girls High school in Badabair was blown up, ten kilometers off Peshawar. The miscreants came in the dark, threatened the watchman with dire consequences in case of resistance, planted the bombs and in a few minutes the 20 room girl’s school was razed to the ground. Upon hearing the deafening bang the residents woke up from the slumber and some of them went up the roofs of their houses and shot aerial fires but the miscreants had got their job done and had left long ago. That school had been inaugurated only fifteen years ago. The police came, inspected the area, lamented the attack and left. The indifference of the police is appalling in such cases. Badabair has Secondary School too, that happened to be my cousin’s property. Only a few weeks before the attack on the High School, the neighbors had razed one of the boundary walls of the Secondary School, my cousin wanted to register a complaint but the police officials gave him a cold shoulder saying that they don’t register the cases against terrorists who destroy schools, why would they intervene in an apparent family feud.

Subsequently, the growing militancy and crime in the area forced the police to join hands with the local residents. After apprehending two suspected Taliban from the Peepal Mosque in Badabair, who were preaching extremism and the increasing rocket attacks on the Badabair police station the police came up with an idea of patrolling by the residents. In an agreement, the police allowed the residents to keep the non-licensed arms for their defense while in return the residents took full responsibility of patrolling the streets in night and cooperating with the police against terrorists. The small army of the watchmen has been called, Qaumi Lashkar. That seems ludicrous but has so far prevented any major attack at least in the Badabair area.

Can this be a long term solution for restoring peace? No, because you can’t deal with one wrong by allowing another. Located close to PATA (Provincially Administered Tribal Area), the people of Badabair and other close by villages are into heinous crimes. The police don’t nab them for two reason either the criminal absconds to the tribal area or simply because they are bribed by the outlaws. Leaving them unchecked might give birth to another headache in future. The local population should be taken into confidence for curbing the wave of terrorism but it’s the duty of the police and agencies not only to keep check on them but thoroughly probe as to who is behind those acts and should come up with substantial plan of uprooting this menace. Besides the members of Qaumi Lashkar are not trained enough to compete with a trained group of Taliban, who are quite expert in guerrilla tactics About 12 miles from Badabair lay another village, Adezai which has lately become a center of militancy. There too, police took the elders into confidence but later on some of them broke the allegiance. Amongst the local population many people have sympathies with Taliban either out of reverence or fear. Last month the Taliban commander in Adezai, who claims his association with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, vowed not to surrender before the police. This proves the growing influence of TTP in the settled areas close to Peshawar.

This summer, terror came even closer, jolting the otherwise peaceful residents of Peshawar. As if the bane of suicide bombings wasn’t enough to make the environment gloomier, the new form of terror unleashed in the guise of target killings and kidnappings. The first incident happened in August this year a day after the school was attacked in Badabair, when the senior US Diplomat was targeted outside her residence in University Town. She survived as she was travelling in the bullet proof car but the recently slain US aid worker and his driver weren’t lucky enough. Both of them died on the spot leaving the residents in shock and terror. These incidents took place in the posh area of Peshawar that has been an ideal location for the foreign NGOs since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and is home to many foreign workers and missions. Towards farther West another expensive locality, Hayatabad, witnessed the kidnappings of Iranian and Afghan diplomats and worse still, they haven’t been recovered yet. Apart from these high profile kidnappings, ordinary citizens are also being kidnapped for ransom every day while the security forces fail to seize the culprits.

Who is behind terrorism, target killings, kidnappings and numerous rocket attacks? One of the convenient answers the ANP government came up with was the same oft-repeated line that the foreign elements are involved in those attacks to bring bad name to the region. Even a barely educated man can make that guess. The worrying thing is that the security situation in Peshawar and NWFP is becoming grave with each passing day. It is baffling for the common man that those militants and criminals have gained so much strength that security forces can’t lay hands on them. Those in power will have to properly plan to curb the outlaws and militants otherwise we would see that day too, when the US would make a claim that an attack on her interest was planned in Peshawar (like the agencies revealed that Marriott bomb blast was planned in Peshawar) and we’d see drones flying in our skies. That’s a doomsday scenario. Just as the leaders on both sides of the borders chant that stable Afghanistan is in Pakistan’s favor similarly the peaceful NWFP is must for the stability, economic growth and development of the rest of the country.


Note: A moment ago when I was typing these lines I heard a loud detonation. That might be yet another rocket attack fired from an unknown location (as the police call it).