Shuja Khanzada and Lashkar e Jhangvi
By Syed Kamran Hashmi
Westfield, IN

To avenge the death of its leader Malik Ishaq in police custody, Lashkar e Jhnagvi (LeJ) perpetrated a suicide attack on the interior minister of Punjab, Shuja Khanzada last week that killed almost twenty people along with the most outspoken critic of the sectarian organizations.

Upon the news of Malik Ishaq’s demise, the media at first reported the supporters of the militant leader, while he was being relocated, had attacked the police convoy to set him free. Six police officers were wounded in the ambush and fourteen detainees lost their lives, one of them being Malik Ishaq himself. But afterwards, Shuja Khanzada clarified the stance of the government.

He said the leader of LeJ was strategically eliminated as a part of the National Action Plan, explaining that there was no place for extremists like him anymore in society and the government was determined to go after anyone and everyone who had been involved in terrorist activities. His statements in a way confirmed what many of us were suspecting: that there was no attack on the police convoy and the infamous sectarian leader was killed in a ‘fake encounter.’

Now after the suicide attack on the prominent member of the Punjab Cabinet, analysts have raised questions about the not-so- foolproof security provided to Shuja Khanzada even when his name had popped up in the hit list, about the competency of the Punjab police which failed to protect its own boss and also about the accuracy of the intelligence information that the state institutions share with each other. Sure, all these questions raise genuine concerns about our readiness to deal with the terrorists blowback. But, what they do not ask - which they must - is how these organizations still are so powerful after two years of country wide military operations including the North Waziristan Agency, once known as the epicenter of global terrorism. Did we not reassure that we have broken the back of these outfits and congratulated ourselves? Have we not proclaimed that all the ‘miscreants’ were on the run hiding from the law enforcing agencies? That their network did not exist anymore because their headquarters had been bulldozed to the ground? That they had suffered heavy casualties, and had lost the capability to hit us back?

None of these claims seems to be true after the death of Mr Khanzada who was first warned by the terrorists weeks ahead of the tragedy and was given enough time to take precautionary measures. My fear is that we could not have taken enough precautions anyway, even if the police had done everything right. With the current strategy of pounding all the suspected terrorists with artillery fires and striking their hideouts with jet bombs, the state is still not fully prepared to take on the vast network of these organizations and eradicate the nuisance altogether. Its apparatus is too weak. The enemy sits way too deep under cover and is far beyond the reach of gun power. The use of sweeping force alone in such circumstances can work for some time and at some places; it does not guarantee a good outcome. On the contrary, the indiscriminate use of force can create more problems than it can solve. Remember the US invasion in Iraq? Did it yield the outcome one hoped for?

Let me explain a little more why I say the state is too weak to handle the crisis by asking a simple question: Why did the state prefer to kill Malik Ishaq instead of prosecuting him? The reason is not difficult to reckon: Everyone knows we did not have enough evidence against Malik Ishaq to keep him in custody. And without the evidence, he was bound to get out on bail and may eventually shed off all the charges against him. You see, this is where lies our weakness: the incapability of various institutions to gather evidence and build an effective case against the suspects.

My second point is: upon the killing of Malik Ishaq, the response (or lack thereof) of the liberals was lamentable. They had to stand up against the policy of extra judicial killings. But, they kept quiet as if they did not exist. Even the most outspoken human rights activists felt so exhausted that they did not protest against the way the LeJ leader was executed.

Honestly speaking, a state cannot behave like the terrorists do, that is, to capture, torture and then eliminate the suspects without giving them the opportunity to defend themselves in a court of law. If the state gets its hands dirty and behaves irresponsibly, it exposes its weaknesses and loses its moral superiority. No war can be won without having that moral conviction; we have to keep that in mind. As far as guns are concerned, terrorists have guns too, they have soldiers who can die for their cause as well. They may also have an ideology to keep their men energized. What they do not have is justice, law, and the system which guarantees a fair chance to everybody, a network of organizations in place to hold the powerful accountable and force them to abide by the rules.

One argument in defense of extra judicial killings could be that the US did not try many of the Guantanamo Bay inmates or the known terrorists like Osama bin Laden in a court of law. True, but Al Qaeda did not operate in the USA, nor were its members US citizens. And most, if not all of its seminaries, financiers, supporters, operatives stayed outside the country. Essentially, the US was/is fighting a war of terror that is not homegrown while Pakistan is fighting a homegrown enemy. In fact, we face a Frankenstein that we thought would never enter our homes while it tore down the peace in our neighborhood.