Eyes wide shut
The mystery surrounding the Multan blast on Sunday – when a rickshaw-motorcycle collision caused an explosion that killed 11 and injured scores – is just another example of security agencies unable to get their act together even as Zarb-e-Azb is well into its second year. All that has been ascertained for sure so far is presence of willful foul play – from traces of explosive material and ball bearings at the blast site. Yet authorities are still clueless about much else; whether the rickshaw or the motorcycle was carrying the explosives, what (or who) might have been the original target, and how they got to such a packed locality with so much ease?
Long years of the war against terrorism have educated more or less everybody about the logistics of such attacks. Components are smuggled into target areas one by one, not all at once. It is at one, or more, of these stages that intelligence agencies pick up ‘chatter’, etc, to disrupt criminal networks. That the long list of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) that were supposedly mobilised and integrated under NAP are clueless about this particular hit speaks volumes about their level of preparedness. And it doesn’t put the interior minister, who just the other day appreciated progress on NAP, in an enviable position.
A big part of the problem is Punjab’s ruling party itself. For far too long the government has shut its eyes to the rising wave of terrorism, and terrorist outfits, in the province, especially its southern belt. By refusing to appreciate the magnitude of the problem, the ruling N-league has allowed the problem to snowball to near unmanageable proportions. To make matters worse, the few among the government that do take the war seriously are allowed to end up like the late brave Col Shuja Khanzada; the brave home minister who took the fight to the enemy and paid with his life. Until and unless those at the helm pull up their socks and take this existential war seriously, Multan will not be an isolated incident.