- A question mark on our policy making
Sadia Sohail
Yesterday i was going on metro bus and to my surprise there was a person, who had been stopped and thoroughly searched by the security staff. The person with beard and topi was showing his patience while checking. It didn’t surprise me that he was a Pathan folk, carrying a travellers bag, along with his kids and wife, he might be going somewhere. It gave me a setback that , if one looks from outside, it would appear to him an emergency has been imposed. For that one after another, common folks are being searched. However while narrowing down the scope, one can further analyse that its not that its evenly applied to all the citizens. People exhibiting Pakhtoon tenure has been taken into account particularly for search. One wonders, how come it’s possible that only Pakhtoon folks are conducting terrorist activities and not the Punjabis and Sindhis.
Recently a bomb blast in Lahore and Sewan Shariff showed contradictory results to what our security guards are suspecting. The two suicide bombers were not Pakhtoons . If it is the criteria to find out the real terrorist, then this policy is taking us nowhere. Our country and policy makers still seem to be too naive at adapting a suitable and proper measure to assess as that who could be terrorist. While putting our belief system in the hands of our Government and bureaucracy that they would devise strategies to unite us and establish peace, we could not allow them to formulate policies which would shatter our belief on one another. Pakistan has a long legacy of auxillarring its adversaries by giving hand and flaming the fires by adjudicating such kind of policies which further deteriorates the situation. We cannot alienate from any crisis until we critically analyse and test every step we are taking for the betterment of our country.
A policy option must be chosen by taking into account all its costs and benefits and above that we must not choose policies for which we shall pay higher price than its benefits s. A seed of resentment once sowed would be reaped in coming years ahead if we start following the policies of undermining the respect and regard of any ethnic national group in the country. As far as, the issue concern to locate the real terrorists, our intelligence agencies can play their role well. For which they have been trained for years by utilizing a lion’s share of national budget to instigate where it is needed to instigate while not harassing the life of common men. As common men has already paid and is paying and if the current political system and norms prevailed would always be paying , heavy amount for its protection and safety in the name of tax being contrived upon him on each and everything he buys, eats and wears. However common men’s security should not be taken for granted at the cost of harassing and horrifying him by suspecting him of crime for which he hiself is a victim. Irony is that after seven back to back bomb blasts, our government had tightened the security and took very stringent measures to meet this threat which is becoming almost eminent to avert out from our country’s root. An operation name Radd-ul-Fassad has been launched. It is to ask, what the next operation be named and after how many bomb blasts will it be initiated? Our social media is at uproar by taking the name of Raddul Fassad as Raddul Pathan. We cannot make fun of these things for the sake of crumbling the cookie.
We are not ignorant of the problems we are facing from the outside world. There are states which are trying to sabotage Pakistan’s peace and security situation inwardly and outwardly. There are hands which are playing with our dignity abroad by selling Pakistan’s image as a breeding terrorist country. And there are rivals who are eyeing to disparate our country into pieces. We have enough adversaries who are playing well to deteriorate the situation so, we must avoid such policies which could target or could seem to be targeting any ethnic group.
These Pakhtoon has given their lives to our state and if time would demand they would never show their back while protecting Pakistan. As a nation we are still crumbling with a mega threat of terrorism. This whole environment of fear let not take our trust from each other that we start envying or killing each other because some are Pakhtoon or some are Punjabi or Sunni. Together we stand and aloof we lose. Let the agencies do their work .I have faith that they can do their work well without inviting more damage to our state by suspecting a large amount of our Pakhtoon brothers. Nations build at the time of crisis, when they follow the pursuit of unity and not disparity. This lack of trust upon our respectful fellow brothers and sisters would merely throw us in quagmire from where it would become in centuries for Pakistan to avert. Policy of generalising or targetting any ethnic group like Pakhtoon, Baloch, Sindhi or Punjabi is not prudent. Need of the hour is to show solidarity to fight against terrorism. We must understand terrorist never take into account while implanting or blowing a bomb in any territory that who is going to die or survive. For them, the more people they attempt to target, the more they achieve their objective of spreading fear in society. Terrorist never enquired that the people who died, among of them, how many were Punjabis or Pathans or Sunnnis or Shiittes? While terrorist not following the path of discriminating behaviour while killing us, we also should not discriminate while scrutinizing terrorists. As terrorists are not Punjabis, neither Sunnis nor Pakhtoons, they are the deadliest cancer of any society and could be found anywhere where its breeding conditions are just apt.
