Security, not enough whatever the measures
the TTP had announced that it would target the candidates belonging to the PPP, the ANP and the MQM and attack their gatherings. It has further warned the voters to shun the rallies organized by what it calls “the secular parties”. While the militant network has rejected democracy as an Un-Islamic contraption and has opposed the elections, it has intriguingly maintained an ambivalent attitude towards the PML-N, JUI-F and JI. Its approach towards the PTI is equally ambivalent despite having categorized Imran Khan as a secular leader. The question is whether those looking after the elections are prepared to meet the challenge.
On Thursday the TTP claimed its first victim when the MQM’s Fakhrul Islam contesting for a Sindh Assembly seat from Hyderabad was gunned down. The militant network immediately claimed responsibility for the act. Earlier in the day an attempt was made in Peshawar to blow up the car in which Arbab Ayub Jan who is the ANP candidate for NA-4 was travelling. Last week the militants attacked an ANP rally killing two and injuring a former MPA belonging to the party in Bannu. Mir Hazar Khan Khoso has ordered an immediate tightening of security for all candidates in the wake of the shooting. The problem is that there are thousands of candidates all over the country. What is more, in every province the terrorist threat has its own peculiarities. In Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, towns bordering the tribal areas or FRs are particularly vulnerable to the threat as is the case with Peshawar and Bannu. The military operation in Tirah valley needs to be intensified and taken to its logical conclusion to improve the situation in Peshawar and adjoining cities. In Karachi, political appointees need to be transferred so that professional officers unconcerned about who wins the elections can concentrate on the TTP hideouts, sleeper cells and ammunition dumps. In Balochistan the agencies should concentrate on those who want to disrupt the polls and provide security to those who are participating in them. In all these places including Punjab the security agencies should act with unprecedented vigilance and share real time information with law enforcement agencies. There is a need to strengthen the check posts to stop the influx of suicide bombers and weapons from the tribal belt.
The Sindh caretaker PM should have transferred key political government officers after April 2 as was done in the Punjab. The Sindh administration must immediately carry out the ECP directives to transfer the 65 bureaucrats. The army commanders have given their nod of approval to the security plan for the polls. So far the entire focus has been on providing security on the day of the election and to major political leaders. While this is understandable, this is by no means enough. Extra efforts have to be put in to make the entire campaign from April 17 to May 11 violence free.
