I can see many tense faces with a feel of agony on the threat Pakistan received a few days back from a neighbouring country that if Pakistan couldn’t recover its security guards earlier kidnapped by terrorists allegedly operating from Pakistani soil, then our neighbour reserves the right to enter into Pakistan and take the appropriate measures to free its guards. Sure, no issue with protest by foreign office or anguish on street, no one can object to the same. But what about the slaughter (literal beheading) of 23 soldiers of Frontier Constabulary the other day, of which the responsibility has been proudly claimed by no one else but Taliban with whom the government has been pleading to declare a ceasefire. Shame doesn’t end at the slaughter of these soldiers, but the main issue is more troublesome — these soldiers were kidnapped by Taliban in June 2010. Pakistani public is justified to ask former and present federal and KP province governments and army itself: What have we been doing in the last three years to free these soldiers which would have been detained not in Somalia but in North Waziristan, a territory still part of Pakistan on present-day maps? If we don’t have any answers, then why get angry on threats being received from neighbours.
MASOOD KHAN
Jubail, Saudi Arabia