On the Kamra incident

The attack on Minhas Airbase at Kamra strangely coincided with the death anniversary of two most controversial generals of Pakistan, Gen Zia-ul-Haq and Gen Akhtar Abdur Rehman, who left behind a legacy of bloodshed, corruption and religious fanaticism. Pakistan was pushed into a quagmire of never-ending violence, sectarian strife, ethnic divisiveness, religious bigotry and it became a sanctuary for the world’s most wanted set of terrorists initially trained by CIA, but now having turned against their former mentors like a Frankenstein.
This is the fourth attack on a major military installation. Perhaps it is time for our men in uniform to make amends for past mistakes and learn some lessons. The primary objective of a national military is to train and focus all their energies to defend the geographical boundaries of a nation.
This essential task of securing the nation is bound to be compromised if our uniformed forces were to indulge in other commercial ventures such as housing, construction firms, marriage halls, road transportation such as NLC etc. Security of defense installations is a specialized field, which requires inputs from dedicated intelligence agencies and intensive training to keep themselves abreast with advances in science and technology that terrorists can exploit to inflict damage to our national security.
Security must assume the primary priority and therefore public access to these establishments must be restricted in totality, which can only be done if all residential and commercial construction located within at least 8 to 10 Km must be dislocated and there should be no exceptions to this rule. Enough damage has been done and the army must concentrate on its job rather than expanding its milbus complex.
SHAHZAD KHALIL
Sialkot