And the NAP is nowhere to be seen
What happened in Lahore on Wednesday shows that any extremist group enjoying the support a few hundred followers can have the entire city blocked. Lahore, with a population of over 10 million, remained hostage to these elements because the government decided to close the major roads with containers to stop the extremists’ entry. The best way to deal with those who wanted to take out rallies without prior permission was to persuade their leaders to desist from the unlawful activity and to take action against them in case they remained adamant on resorting to mischief. The least that the government could have done was to put the leaders and their prominent activists under house arrest.
What the government did instead was to intern those who wanted to proceed to their normal daily activities by putting containers on the major roads. Instead of stopping the movement of the mobs the government blocked the city traffic causing hassle to common commuters.
The Punjab government’s failure to enforce the National Action Plan (NAP) is one of the reasons why extremist groups continue to challenge the state. Qadri was sentenced only after he had pleaded his case at all available judicial forums including the Supreme Court. No society can hope to survive if everyone who lost a case in a court of law was to challenge the verdict in the streets. The government’s negligence has led to the proscribed organisations becoming active and joining hands to undermine the system. Since there has been no action against the radicalised seminaries, they continue to churn out students with extremist mindset. While NAP expressly requires ban on glorification of terrorists through print and electronic media, the protesters carried banners on Wednesday that glorified death sentence. Making use of the government’s negligence extremist outfits which run the seminaries use their students, who depend on them for free boarding and lodging, to confront the government. Unless the government ensures the implementation of NAP, terrorism will again raise its ugly head.
Your heading 'Extremism sets the stage, terrorism occupies it' sums up the situation rather well.
While actual operations against terrorists have been carried out in tribal areas, Karachi and Balochistan, not much is visible in Punjab in that respect even though Punjab houses the headquarters of many banned outfits. And when it comes to anti-terrorism operations, there seems to be over-focus on Karachi but definitely an under-focus on Punjab.
And while elimination of terrorists is being done on selective basis in some regions of the country, there is no organized campaign visible, anywhere in the country, to fight and eradicate extremism which generates terrorism. Despite their forceful statements every now and then, just how can the authorities eleminate terrorism when new batches of terrorists keep coming in, more than replacing the small numbers of those eliminated through operations?
It is really a shame that Sharif Brothers who, between them, have ruled Punjab – and Pakistan – off and on for decades, seem to have no will to tackle this problem which is threatening the very existence of the country, while the same government had no hesitation in staging a massacre at Dr. Tahirul Qadir Model Town Secretariat, killing fourteen innocent men and women and woundidng nearly a hundred.
However, this is bound to happen to the assortment of people divided into various groups based on their ethnicity and religious beliefs in Pakistan, fondly referred to as a nation, who seem to be busy fighting each other and are thus unable to present a formidable challenge to force the government to mend its ways, or even to throw it out if it doesn't behave.
Karachi
Thanks for sharing…very useful info
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