The assassination of Punjab Home Minister Colonel (retd) Shuja Khanzada and 17 others by a suicide bomber at his village of Dera near Attock, tragic as it is, should not surprise us. Mr Khanzada was leading the counter-terrorism fight in Punjab since he took over the Home portfolio in October 2014. The attack was both a security and an intelligence failure. That so much planning went into it should have meant that the minister should have been given adequate and specific forewarnings. The security failure is clear by the absence at the time of the Elite Force, the Punjab government’s anti-terrorism force. As the Punjab provincial cabinet paid rich tributes to martyred home minister Khanzada in a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, the CM promised to lead the war against terrorism. What is important for him to know, though, is that mourning the slain minister means nothing if this commitment to eradicating terrorism is not followed through. Mr Khanzada’s death is surely a blow to the counterterrorism efforts of the Punjab government. By most accounts, the home minister was an adroit and capable leader and had chalked up a number of successes against militant groups. It is in the nature of counterterrorism work and policing that the biggest successes are often unknown to the public because success is measured by the absence of violence. Inevitably, there will be questions about how a senior minister, and a frontline figure in the fight against militancy, was left so vulnerable. While grief and resolve are the right mix of response to the tragedy, some sober reflection may also be called for. The killing of Shuja Khanzada is the first high profile loss of the PML-N. Other parties, particularly the PPP and ANP have suffered the loss of many prominent persons in the past. Even the PTI has lost some of its people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. However, Punjab, some terrorist incidents in the past notwithstanding, was by and large considered secure. Critics were wont to ascribe this seeming calm to the tolerance shown to the terrorists, particularly in southern Punjab, by the PML-N, but this was always denied. Now however, after this tragic incident, it is time to reflect. The strike against a sitting minister in his native village in the north of the province suggests the reach of the terrorists is not, if it ever was, confined to southern Punjab. The informed perception that they have sleeper cells all over the province and that arguably Punjab offers many terrorist outfits a safe haven and headquarter had been mooted, but never properly taken up. One report says some 57 discrete terrorist and sectarian groups have a presence on Punjab soil, a number that may well have grown by now to 95. With their leadership ‘safe’ in Punjab, these groups have spread and are active all over the country. If true, this means the head of the snake will have to be scotched in Punjab. Urban Punjab, central and northern Punjab, indeed areas in other provinces not usually associated with militancy, have all become zones in which the militants are able to hide and operate. To root out those elements, it will take much more than raids and so-called intelligence-based operations. The state is still not any closer to understanding why militancy continues to attract new converts. Simply capturing or killing generations of militants is not enough. The emphasis needs to switch to ensuring there is no next generation being indoctrinated.
pk.shafaqna.com
