And please – no ethnic profiling
Three days after Chief Minister Punjab sought the Rangers’ support the army decided to launch Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad. While the Operation was meant for the entire country the fact that the decision to launch it was announced after a meeting in Lahore presided over by COAS and attended by all Corps commanders of Punjab, DG Ranges Punjab and heads of intelligence Agencies left no doubt that special attention was to be paid to the terrorists in the province. On Sunday the Punjab Apex Committee decided to move a step further in the direction by intensifying and expanding the scope of joint raids in the province that were being already conducted as part of Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad.
Punjab needed special attention because of its being the birthplace of LeJ, JeM and LeT-cum-JuD. Punjab also had the largest number of seminaries out of which nearly half remained unregistered till August 2015, as Supreme Court was told by the provincial government. Punjab also shares borders with all the provinces which helps terrorists here to fan out with relative ease. Punjab was therefore the only province mentioned in National Action Plan which recommended zero tolerance for militancy in its case.
Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif has reportedly decided to completely eliminate masterminds of extremism, sectarianism and fanaticism from the province. For this Punjab needs to register and regulate thousands of seminaries, clamp down on banned outfits operating under new names besides launching special combing operations along the areas bordering the other three provinces. While doing this it has to shun ethnic profiling. What is more it has to launch a multifaceted, pro-active and prolonged campaign taking media houses and educational institutions into confidence to inculcate a tolerant mindset among the masses. For this it has not only to evolve a counter narrative but also widely publicise it.
The success of the operation in Punjab would be judged not only from the number of raids conducted and terrorists arrested or taken out but also from the seriousness shown in evolving measures to bring change in the common man’s thinking.
