Back in December 2014, after the APS attack in Peshawar, with the harrowing images of murdered little kids on the TV screens and audiences more emotional than they had been in recent history, it was perhaps bad form to be cynical of the vows that were being made about fighting terror in the country.
If one didn’t think this incident was going to be some sort of watershed moment in the history of our fight against terror, one was asked to keep quiet. After all, didn’t the military just launch a grand military operation titled Zarb-e-Azb, extending to even the hitherto untouched North Waziristan? It would have been nitpicking to say that the Operation had been started earlier in the year, after the attack on the Karachi airport. But would it have been nitpicking to ask about the operations in the other tribal agencies, where “cleared” agencies were positively infested with the militants? No need to look farther than next door’s Khyber agency, where incessant operations against the Lashkar-e-Islami’s Mangal Bagh didn’t get the man. He was killed only recently this year in a drone strike after he relocated to Afghanistan.
The APS attacks also featured, on social media, a ghoulish “trend” by the name of #neverforget. What, exactly, we weren’t going to forget wasn’t clear. Yes, children died is what we would remember. But children, along with women, had also died in the same Peshawar’s Meena Bazaar blast of 2009, yielding slightly higher casualties. That a number of these children were army officers’ kids? Was that what was different?
A number of incidents have taken place since then. At the moment, it might seem difficult that we would forget the Quetta blasts, but we remember the Bacha Khan University attacks only when we read about it off the list of previous terrorist activities.
We will move on after the Quetta incident. Though the ability to move on is a blessing that the Almighty has bestowed upon us, closure and introspection isn’t what will happen in our case. We will merely have a waiting period till something exactly like this happens again. As someone who watches the news media for a living (sort of) I could play out a sequence of events for you. A who-will-say-what.
There are going to be many features in this after-terror pantomime, but principally, in the aftermath of the next episode, the media is going to gang up on the few (very few) who ask any questions of value. Even if you disagree with Mahmood Khan Achakzai’s diagnosis, even if you think RAW, not militants from our own safe havens are responsible, you would agree that his call to hold the intelligence agencies accountable is reasonable.
On TV, it has been open season on Achakzai, specially in the aftermath of his earlier statement of support for the Afghan refugees. But the man seems unafraid to back down, as we can see from the Asma Shirazi’s interview. Hers was perhaps the only program that was civil to him. Mahmood Khan Achakzai’s father Abdul Samad Achakzai, much like his friend, that doyen of anti-colonialist, democratic movements, Abdul Ghaffar “Bacha” Khan, was a freedom fighter who had spent decades of his life in jail as a prisoner of conscience, before and after independence. The younger Achakzai himself has spent time in jail in the struggle for democracy. We didn’t sell out to the British, he asked, but are being accused of selling out to RAW? The program, linked below for online readers, makes for an interesting watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8kjUEdpZUQ
What is interesting is that the likes of Pervez Musharraf have been appearing on TV, accusing him of treason. The sheer chutzpah of a man most certainly guilty of high treason accusing of treason a man who is merely asking questions of the security agencies is lost out on many.
Quetta is a garrison town for all practical purposes. Though it might not be a collection of streets, to paraphrase Achakzai, it is still not a big city. Even if you disagree with the notion that the deep state is harbouring militants in the city — despite clear evidence to the contrary — it still merits asking what the intelligence agencies are doing if not intercepting plans like these. Anecdotal evidence from the citizens of Quetta, or any such garrison city, will testify that the stopping-and-checking that they have to face at the hands of the security forces borders on harassment. All that, for what?
There are several voices of reason within the political spectrum. The ANP has always been at it, since before any political party in the country. The PPP, opposed to this viewpoint of the ANP (then NAP) in the 70s, has come around. The League, due to the burden of governance, has seen the light. Most surprisingly for a number of people (but not for those who have actually been following the party’s point of view), the JUI-F has been talking sense since long. It’s Maulana Sheerani (yes, that retrogressive head of the CII) has been making starkly bold statements on the issue since some time now. This is not, I restate, not a liberal versus conservative issue. This is a common sense issue.
And anyone talking common sense on the issue on TV these days is immediately accused of being an agent of foreign powers. The emperor iswearing clothes. Plenty of them. Military fatigues, if you must know.
I am convinced that this despicable RAW has penetrated much deeper than we the common people of this wretched land know. The sad part is that decisionmakers and media have abandoned people and purpose.
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