Army, federal government must respond to ‘hidden facts’ claim
Responding to critique of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI)-led Khyber Pakthunkhwa (KP) government for “failing to respond to the Dera Ismail Khan jailbreak”, the PTI Chairman Imran Khan has thrown a few heavy punches back at his critics. As some politicians began to accuse the PTI for “deliberately” allowing the attack to go ahead for its “apparent sympathy” for the Taliban, Khan’s questions were an important rebuke to both the army and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government at the centre. Amidst talk of the PTI being non-serious about the proposed All Parties Conference (APC) on the security situation, Khan has refused to take it lightly. The most pertinent of these questions is: how, in the presence of an army division in and around DI Khan, did the attackers manage to free hundreds of their accomplices?
The words Khan used, “all institutions of the state need to introspect,” are perhaps too light, given that the DI Khan jailbreak came after the leak of the Abbotabad Commission report, which pointed to gross negligence on the part of the security agencies. Khan asked how, if intelligence reports were made available on a timely basis, and all necessary preparations were made to thwart a possible attack, did the attack occur in such a smooth manner? Khan claimed that three security cordons were set up around the jail while machine gunners had been posted at strategic positions. If indeed such was true, then Khan has a point. The provincial government can do nothing if the State’s security apparatus is unwilling to put up a fight on the ground. But the matter cannot be closed at this. The more important question is: why the State’s security apparatus did not put up a fight?
It must be remembered that Khan had been repeatedly demanding a meeting with the army chief and the prime minister before the proposed APC. He referred to the need for the federal government and military establishment to come clean on what he termed as “hidden facts” before calling the APC. What ‘hidden facts’ Khan is referring to only he can clarify. The promise of a high-level inquiry by the KP government into the DI Khan incident is a mighty one. The most important thing is that the report be shared publicly, unlike the Abbottabad Commission report which was hidden away and became an embarrassing leak for the federal government and military establishment. Surely Khan is right in asking how over 100 TTP militants managed to free 248 prisoners in the DI Khan jail in a four-hour attack. Was there complicity from the state? Or is the state security apparatus completely ineffective? Either way the attack does not speak well of the ability or seriousness of a security apparatus that has been fighting the same enemy for over a decade. Answers are required and quickly. Another ‘no comment’ by the ISPR like the one after Imran Khan’s press conference will not do.