Why is PTI shy of calling a spade a spade?
If ever there was an excuse worse than the crime, this definitely falls in that realm: Blaming every other terror incident by the government high-ups on ‘outside forces’ – a euphemism for the Indian spooks. In recent memory, Rehman Malik used to take refuge behind it ad nauseum. And he patently looked and sounded insincere, trying to lamely pass the buck, as if obstructing the ‘outside forces’ as the internal security point man was not his basic job description. Now the baton has been passed on to other equally comical figures mostly found in the PTI and the party’s nemesis in KP, the JUI-F, with Rehman Malik’s successor not a very distant third on this ‘honors list’.
The PTI’s third legislator, Israrullah Gandapur was suicide-bombed to smithereens along with nine others with 30 injured in DI Khan on Eid day. A full week after the tragedy, the pencil-slim KP chief minister Pervaiz Khatak in Quetta has raised the bogey of the ‘third force’, also alternately mentioned as ‘hidden hand’. This is a shift in position, as earlier an unnamed political group was held responsible by Khattak. There are few takers for the KP government’s word view because while the province has been rocked by one deadly terror attack after another, and it has kept on shifting blame on “the elements opposed to talks” – without ever bringing up hundreds of attacks for which the TTP and its affiliates, including LeJ, had claimed responsibility. The excuse has been presented repeatedly, without mentioning who these ‘elements opposed to talks’ actually were, dittor for linking terror attacks to the ‘third force’ without a shred of evidence. Another factor begs for an answer. Was the TTP Incorporated – something like 60-odd entities that kill and maim with gay abandon, some of which also monstrously work as guns for hire for the much maligned ‘third force’ – was averse to indulging in acts of terror, killing the innocent or the security forces prior to the time much before the ‘talks’ emerged as the sole panacea? If not, then why point the finger at the ‘elements’ opposed to talks now?
It is about time the PTI leadership looked at options beyond clinging to its monologue of a stated narrative, which has started sounding stale and jarring to the man on the street with average intelligence a long time ago. The PTI’s ranks and file should take ownership of the fight against terror in the province it rules. It cannot come to pass until it first learnt to call a spade a spade.
