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.