As long as profits earned from this criminal economy are reaped by their godfathers, terrorism will thrive
DUBAI: The Punjab government deserves credit for ending the chapter of the brutal terrorist, Malik Ishaq, and his accomplices. It is time for the message to go out loud and clear that this country will no longer tolerate anybody involved in spreading sectarian and ethnic hatred and the killings of innocent men, women and children in cold blood. Those who live by the sword usually die by the sword and the activists of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi have met their fate.
The federal government must now proceed to cleanse the FIA, Customs, Immigration, Coast Guards and security agencies deputed at airports, seaports and border checkpoints of all corrupt officers who facilitated these acts of terrorism, along with eliminating the various channels for their financial funding. Simultaneously, steps need to be taken to reform all those recruits who were brainwashed to become part of these terrorist outfits, while giving exemplary punishments to those who have committed heinous crimes. Provincial governments in Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa must follow suit and crack down to eliminate these mafias and their supporters in the bureaucracy, the police and other law-enforcement agencies. It is imperative that we win this war to eliminate organised crime by cutting off financial funding from within and outside the country. The organised gangs involved in transferring billions of dollars out of Pakistan through money laundering couriers with the connivance of rotten eggs within the law-enforcement and security agencies, customs, FIA, etc. must be dealt with an iron hand. As long as profits earned from this criminal economy are reaped by their godfathers, terrorism will thrive and innocent citizens will continue to die.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, August 2nd, 2015.
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