THIS is with reference to the report ‘Pakistan vows to hit terrorists in wake of Mastung carnage’ (Oct 1), which, among other things, quoted the chief of the army staff as promising to use the “might of the state” against the “forces of evil”.

He was speaking during his visit to the affected area after a suicide bomber blew himself in Balochistan’s Mastung area, where, like elsewhere in the country, people had gathered for an Eid Milad-un-Nabi procession. Unfortu-nately, this was not the only blast in the country on the day.

Are we slipping back into the past when there were bomb blasts every other day, killing innocent people on the streets, mosques, markets, schools and parks? The fresh wave of violence reminds us of the bloody days when we would see terrorists blowing themselves up whenever and wherever they wanted, and we seemed helpless against their atrocities.

It was only after the massacre of our children at the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar that the state finally decided that enough was enough, and the military high command launched Operation Zarb-i-Azb to eliminate the terrorists and teach aspiring terrorists a lesson. In addition, moratorium on death penalty was lifted and trial of civilians by military courts was also allowed. All these steps together, indeed, eliminated the threat.

The military operation was largely a success, for many of the terrorists were either killed or had to flee Pakistan. It was a total victory for the military, and the nation was happy for getting rid of the curse of terrorism.

But after 2018, the government of the time came out with a plan out of the blue to have ‘peace talks’ with the very same terrorists who had martyred thousands of Pakistanis, including the APS children. This was despite the fact that the terrorists — the ones who had survived the military operation — had already been on the run for some time, and were mostly in the hiding somewhere in Afghanistan. The government, however, allowed thousands of terrorists to return to their homes in Pakistan. Was it a good move or a great blunder? Well, that is a question the people of Pakistan will answer in their own time.

As things stand today, it seems that we are back to square one; there have been relentless acts of terrorism in the recent past, especially in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). We need to have a clear policy and stance on the issue, for we already have other malaise aplenty, like political turmoil, polarisation in society and economic woes.

The caretaker government seems to lack power. Questions on trial of civilians in military courts are being raised at a critical time when we face the scourge of terrorism. We still are not sure when we will have elections and, subsequently, the next government. And that is making us jittery.

All terrorist groups need to be handled with an iron hand. There can be no confusion on this critical count. Merely blaming hostile foreign intelligence agencies for such acts of terrorism is not going to resolve our issues.

We need to have stability in the country for a whole range of reasons, the most important being the business environment that has to be good enough for attracting foreign investment. Some harsh steps need to be taken if the idea is not to allow things to get out of control as they did previously.

This needs to be done now; the sooner, the better. Else, we will keep losing our people, including personnel of security forces, in such barbaric acts.

Malik ul Quddoos
Karachi

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2023