Terrorism: what can else & alone Pakistan can do?

Now when Pakistani media is also revealing the leads and distinctly reporting about some or all terrorists of Mumbai attacks came from Pakistan, the world especially India is justified to force Pakistan to crackdown underground training camps and their terrorists’ plans.

However, the million dollar question remains stand there; has Pakistan done anything to fight against these terrorists groups and networks in the past. Now my answer especially for those anti-Pakistani elements who want to take this as an opportunity to disintegrate Pakistan is that the tale of bloody military operations, raids, hundreds of arrests and handing over them to US, banning many organisations & groups including Lashkar-e-Taiba, lose of thousands of military personnel, prominent civilians and properties, in the last 7 years should be enough to shut-up their mouths. In addition, United States and all Western allies have no dispute that Pakistan has been the front-line ally with the rest to eliminate terrorists groups and their networks.

Former President of Pakistan and a strong ally of United States, Retired General Pervez Musharraf, had banned Lashkar-e-Taiba. Then what happened, the creators of Lashkar-e-Taiba created the organisation with another name ‘Jamat ud Dawa’. India has banned Kashmiri activists groups and organisations and launched bloody operations against them. Has India succeeded to eliminate Kashmiri liberation movement from Kashmir? The biggest example is of Al-Quaeda? After the biggest military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and now in Northern Pakistan in the history since Vietnam War The world has seen how much United States and her allies succeeded in the mission. They even don’t know the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden and whether he is alive or not.

The point I would like to make which I and many writers have raised time and again that until the world’s power don’t deal sincerely and fairly with the root causes of these ongoing global terrorism the world will not see the peace. Laskh-e-Taiba and now Jamat ud Dawa is the gift of Kashmir dispute for which India has never shown any sincerity to resolve the issue as per what had been decided in the United Nation 60 years ago and more importantly which is accepted to the people of Kashmir. Not resolving Kashmir issue with peace means you are giving opportunity to the extremists to employ more and more extremists give them training and make them ready to throw their lives on the name of Jihad or liberation of their land. Even if Pakistan bans all the pro-religious and extremists organisations what is the guarantee the activists or extremists wouldn’t create them again.

Nevertheless, it may be due to the pressure of United States or India, Pakistan has acted promptly and sincerely hunting down the perpetrators of attacks in Mumbai. Pakistani agencies have already made many raids and arrests. Now this is the time when India must work with Pakistan in order to help Pakistan in crack down terrorists and their plans as this is not the Indian or Pakistani interest but this is the interest of the entire region. According to Pakistani foreign minister, India has not shared any information with the Pakistani agencies except providing the old list of 20 people. Exchanging list of people in demand or even handover to each other some individual cannot eliminate terrorists and their future plans. Indian agencies must work closely and help them if they have any fruitful information in order to crackdown terrorists’ future plans. Prior to the attacks in Mumbai, Pakistani foreign minister and his ministerial was busy in India dealing with various matters of peace and stability between the two nations. Common Indians and Pakistanis were happy with the progress. People from sports, entertainment, art and commerce of both countries started to enjoy their shared benefits. The Mumbai attacks quickly put them thousands step back. Many Pakistani cricketers, entertainers, film artists with the fear of their lives left India and the same situation may be with Indian artists and players. On the other hand, fanatics of both sides and those agencies whom vested interest directly collide with the wishful neighbourly relations between India and Pakistan will again take the advantage and move the peace process back to zero point.

Therefore, the leadership of both Pakistan and India has to condemn sit and work together in the largest interest of the region. They should come out with fresh, bold and realistic proposals realizing the needs of the time rather than blaming each other especially to protect and secure their borders and homeland security. For example; Pakistan recently proposed India to establish a hotline contact between the secret services of both the countries. Half a century old history shows that wars and blame games never benefited any country. Similarly the proposal should also objectively focus on resolving the long-standing issues between the two countries and the disputes which have been providing opportunities to the non-state actors to bring them at war since their creation.

(The writer is Sydney-based journalist, foreign correspondent and a media analyst).
Concluded: December 13, 2008

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