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EDITORIAL: South Punjab and Taliban

In a TV discussion, ex-Jama’at-e Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad asserted that the terrorists who were killing innocent Pakistanis were not only not Muslims but that the killing was being done by three enemy states: the United States, India and Israel. In another TV discussion, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah made the case that South Punjab was not the home of terrorism and that the territory of South Punjab was being exaggeratedly expanded by critics to include cities like Jhang.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad rounded off his scenario of a three-state attack on Pakistan by saying that the US wanted to destroy Pakistan’s nuclear programme because it did not want an Islamic state to possess the atom bomb and join the club of nuclear powers. The discussion did not pinpoint the identity of those who killed innocent Pakistanis, so we will not know what he thought of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), especially when it routinely announces ownership of the lethal suicide attacks being carried out in the country.

The JI line on the TTP is that they are own people determined to fight the Americans and that the government should talk to them instead of despatching troops into their territory. One can say that it has tactfully placed itself at the head of all the elements in Pakistan who embrace anti-Americanism and reject “conditional” American aid to Pakistan in these days of economic crisis, manifested each day by protesting state employees who have not received their salaries for months.

But one must note the reluctance on the part of JI leaders like Qazi Hussain Ahmad to define the Taliban as terrorists after alleging that those who kill are not Pakistanis but those paid to do the dirty work by the US-Indian-Israel combine. But in Indian-administered Kashmir, the Jama’at chief Mr Ali Gilani is prepared to concede that “the Taliban are defaming Islam by killing innocent people and destabilising Pakistan”.

His repartee to TTP chief Hakimullah’s claim that he was committed to spreading Islam was: “The Taliban are portraying Islam in a poor light and are defaming it. I advise them to give up violence and bring Islamic revolution in the country by adopting peaceful means”. The opinion in Pakistan too has swung around after the TTP’s misdeeds in the Malakand-Swat region. The Pakistan Army has undertaken its operations against the terrorists only after gauging the mood of the people. There was simply no other alternative.

The ANP government in the NWFP, which replaced the MMA government of which the JI was a part, thinks differently. It sees the survival of the country only in confronting and defeating the terrorists. Despite its anti-American credentials, it doesn’t think that those killing the innocent citizens are agents of the US-India-Israel combine. Additionally, it wants the Punjab government to assist in lessening the intensity of TTP violence by reining in its own Punjabi Taliban.

The Punjab government is however not convinced that the Punjabi Taliban are embedded in South Punjab alone: according to Rana Sanaullah, they are no more, no less than such elements found in all the regions of the country. It develops that the “official” delineation of what is South Punjab is different from the experts who write on terrorism in the province. Administratively, for instance, Jhang doesn’t fall in South Punjab, but culturally and linguistically it does.

If you count Jhang in South Punjab then terrorism actually owes its birth there, with time spawning breakaway outfits that spread from South Punjab in all directions. Scholars who study the phenomenon include the following cities in the 13 districts of South Punjab: Bahawalnagar, Bahawalpur, Bhakker, Dera Ghazi Khan, Jhang, Khanewal, Layyah, Lodhran, Multan, Muzaffargarh, Rahimyar Khan, Rajanpur, and Vehari. The Seraiki Movement in South Punjab actually includes many additional districts of Upper Punjab too.

It is also denied that DG Khan has an abnormal concentration of militant madrassas. Editor of The Nation, Ms Shireen Mazari, who hails from DG Khan wrote recently: “In DG Khan, taking both its tehsils, there are 185 registered madrassas, of which 90 are Deobandi (with a total of 324 teachers), 84 are Barelvi (with a total of 212 teachers), six are Ahl-e-Hadith (107 teachers) and five are Fiqh-e-Jafaria (10 teachers)”. The unregistered madrassas are not in the count.

Punjab has done well to upgrade its police department. South Punjab is a challenge that it must tackle with a first-rate police cadre and a highly developed intelligence network. Let us not force the army to tackle what the province can take care of within its own jurisdiction. On the other hand, the JI must clear its mind about terrorism and not obfuscate the issue through populist politics. *

SECOND EDITORIAL: Islamabad: terror epicentre?

Examining the spoor of terrorists closely, security agencies are increasingly worried about Islamabad being the epicentre of terrorism. Acting on the basis of this pointer, there was a dragnet taken across the numerous madrassas in the capital city, only to find that all was fine with them. It is not known if the mosques — where sermons laced with politics are routinely given — were also under observation. But an outfit named Ghazi Force is being mentioned, named after the deceased leader of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid.

The nation is aware that terrorism in the country touched its first peak after the military operation against Islamabad’s Lal Masjid in 2007. Even Al Qaeda in its message on Al Jazeera TV condemned the operation and swore vengeance. No sociological study has been carried out in Islamabad. The intelligence agencies lack the scientific know-how and the students in the various high-profile educational institutions are ideologically too indoctrinated to undertake a dispassionate project like that.

It would be wrong to designate certain cities or regions as “homes of terrorism”. After the GHQ attack, we have discovered that the masterminds had come from Faisalabad, a city not too often mentioned in connection with terrorism. It would not be surprising if in the coming days female suicide-bombers come on the scene and are discovered to have emerged from a mushroom growth of female madrassas in Rawalpindi. What is needed is sound intelligence.

If intelligence is not forthcoming then anti-terrorism campaigns will seem like wild goose chases, now suspecting one city now another. And Islamabad, traditionally “in focus” more than other cities, should be the most scrutinised place in Pakistan, down to secret recordings of Friday sermons in the city’s myriad mosques. *

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