Could cost the nation dearly
The barbaric incident in Peshawar was considered to be the moment from where the country would take a turn and deal with the endemic problems extremism has perpetuated over the past few decades, but how the government has gone about handling this affair since the incident is a proof of nothing more than what the routine has always been: leave everything till the end and even then just find a workaround of a problem; never actually sort it out. That approach may have worked in the past but it is not going to work anymore. What happened in the National Assembly the other day is a proof of the status quo of the matters the government claims it is taking a proactive approach in handling.
Opposition Leader Khurshid Shah claimed in the NA that the tragic incident in Shikarpur that took the lives of at least 61 people of Shia community was a failure of intelligence apparatus in the country. And then, to rub it in the face of a province, and community, that have always alleged the Centre of sidelining, the Prime Minister did not visit the place of incident or see the families of those killed despite being in Karachi. That political exigencies were given preference over government being seen as proactive paints a sorry figure for the civilian leadership. However, one cannot just ignore the fact that these would have been the steps after the fact, and what is needed are steps that are taken beforehand. And that would not be possible without a system where country’s assorted intelligence agencies share important intel in a timely fashion, which in turn puts the burden again on the government to come up with a setup where all such intelligence is available to relevant law and order agencies, not just the country’s premiere spy agency.
The inefficiency and tardiness of the government is quite an issue. The Senate the other day grilled the government on its lack of proper security and intelligence policies. Combined with the reports that terrorist organistations like Daesh are on a recruiting spree, one wonders if the government is just turning its head the other way and leaving the people on their own. This cannot work both in short term and long term and the N League has to change its approach from lethargic one to a proactive one.
