Pak-India tensions
Is it brinkmanship or something more? With the decade-old ceasefire along the LoC already in tatters, India appears determined to find new avenues of provocation against Pakistan.
Over the weekend, first an Indian submarine attempted to intrude into Pakistani waters, according to official accounts, and then a small Indian surveillance drone was knocked down after it strayed across the LoC, again according to official statements.
While each incident may individually seem small and both sides will likely dispute what really occurred, it is alarming that incidents, especially one involving a submarine, are taking place at the moment.
Pakistan-India ties are not merely in a deep freeze, but appear to be further unravelling. Seemingly that is the intention of the Indian leadership. Do both sides truly understand the risks they appear so willing to stoke?
While it is difficult to definitively ascribe motives to the actions of an external rival, it does seem that the Indian government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has rejected the idea of engaging Pakistan in dialogue and is determined to go down a path of increasing military tensions.
Perhaps this is because the Indian state wants to deflect attention from its troubles in India-held Kashmir or because a strong, militaristic nationalism is the campaign platform of choice for the BJP, which faces crucial state elections once again in the year ahead.
With the election of a hawkish Donald Trump in the US, Mr Modi may even now be gambling that the year ahead will see closer cooperation between India and the US and more pressure on Pakistan from the new American administration to address US and Indian concerns about specific militant groups allegedly operating on Pakistani soil.
So the combination of pre-existing preferences and the introduction of a new, unpredictable factor in the election of Mr Trump may be the cause of a fresh spike in Pakistan-India tensions.
Perhaps all sides, including the incoming US administration, should pay heed to the words of the outgoing team in Washington.
Commenting on the efforts by some anti-Pakistan elements in the US Congress to declare Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism, the US State Department spokesperson suggested that it is better to engage with Pakistan on counterterrorism issues than to seek punitive measures. In the words of John Kirby, the spokesperson, there should be a “focus on the importance of regional, collaborative, and effective counterterrorism operations”.
While the current US administration’s policies in the region have hardly been ideal and certainly more than a little lopsided, it is worth paying heed to sensible advice at this uncertain juncture in regional dynamics. Pakistan too must promote sensible and peaceful policy outcomes.
Ban on militant groups
WITH the latest round of bans, the total number of proscribed militant groups in the country has now touched 63. The Jamaatul Ahrar and the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi al-Alami certainly appear to have earned their respective bans: each has claimed responsibility for several of the more grotesque militant attacks in recent times in various parts of the country. Separately, investigations by the security apparatus appear to have confirmed many of the claims of responsibility by the two groups, according to reports in the media. The status that the two banned groups have acquired ought to trigger action against them. But there lies the problem: what exactly are the steps that are required to be taken and how will progress towards those goals be measured? Or to put it bluntly, how many of the 61 previously banned groups have been made extinct ie verifiably put out of action as their banned status demands? Few examples exist and it is virtually impossible to identify any group that has truly been dismantled and made operationally extinct. Instead, the record suggests that most of the banned groups reconstitute under different names or split and fragment into a number of sub-groups with even more violent agendas. The Jamaatul Ahrar and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi al-Alami are themselves examples of that phenomenon.
While there are specific instances of aggressive actions taken by the state, the general experience is of few successful prosecutions of members of militant groups and virtually no leaders being captured, prosecuted and successfully imprisoned. Indeed, some of the more high-profile militant leaders roam the country with impunity and in several places appear to be afforded official security while their public activities are facilitated by the state at the local level. Why, for example, does the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat leadership continue to hold public gatherings where the group’s patently illegal and violent agenda is openly propagated? In other cases, why do leaders of groups facing international sanctions and on local watch lists seem to fearlessly give statements to the media that espouse explicitly violent agendas? While the questions are many, the answers are few. Part of the problem certainly is the very repository of the list of banned militant groups: Nacta. Seemingly, no government is capable of mastering the riddle of an agency that everyone agrees is vital to the counterterrorism and counter-extremism fight but that somehow has not been able to evolve beyond institutional infancy.
Exhumation of bodies
ONE would imagine that after years of suffering terrorist attacks in which tens of thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives, criminal investigation authorities here would have put in place procedures to streamline their work. Not so, apparently. It has emerged that this week a medical team, under the supervision of a judicial officer, is to exhume the bodies of the 10 attackers killed during their assault on the Karachi airport on June 8, 2014. The four-member team will collect samples to carry out DNA tests for the purpose of establishing the identity of the assailants, who were buried in an Edhi-run graveyard in Karachi.
The airport attack, which was claimed by the banned TTP, was carried out — or so the investigation appeared to determine — by Uzbek militants, with local elements having provided them with logistical support, funds and weapons. Three men are presently on trial for being accessories to the crime. While the purpose of the impending exhumation is not yet clear, it may be linked to the recent arrest of a member of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, who is very much a Pakistani and has claimed that his brother was one of the attackers killed during the assault. It is inexplicable that DNA samples were not taken from the 10 men as a matter of course, and that over two years later, exhumation has to be resorted to for the purpose. In the West, decades-old cold cases are being solved through latest forensic science techniques simply because investigators all those years ago had the foresight to preserve the evidence. Here, on the other hand, there remains an alarming lack of protocols for processing crime scenes. Scarce attention is paid by police to preventing the public from contaminating evidence, which can fatally compromise a successful prosecution — particularly in an environment where witnesses are reluctant to testify. This haphazard, lackadaisical approach to gathering and preserving evidence must be replaced with strictly professional methods reinforced by access to the best forensic tools.
Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2016