Expanding the dragnet

If the operation in interior Sindh is carried efficiently, LEAs are bound to step on the toes of the PPP

That the outlaws of Karachi would prefer to escape the Rangers’ dragnet and lie low for the time being rather than confront the law enforcers was more than a certainty. And that is exactly what most who could escape seemed to have done, at least over the last one year, when the Karachi operation turned effectively dogged. These escapees, in all probability, spread all over the country, but for logistic reasons most seem to have chosen the interior of Sindh to wait out the Karachi operation. The occasional terror strikes that the city — relatively calmer since the operation was re-launched more vigorously — has suffered over the last several days, like the killing of four Rangers and two Military Police personnel, indicate that these outlaws have probably started making the most of their new sanctuaries to test the limits of the law enforcement agencies.

There are also confirmed intelligence reports of activities of outlawed organisations, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Jaish-e-Mohammad, in Khairpur and Shikarpur districts, areas which are said to have become highly sensitive to militant exploits. In view of all this, it was only logical for the Sindh Apex Committee to decide to extend the scope of the targeted operation against criminals to the entire province of Sindh.

This is a welcome decision as is the one to establish 30 more anti-terrorism courts (ATC) as there are around 10,000 ATC cases pending in Karachi alone. In addition, 200 new public prosecutors, 8,000 policemen and 200 investigation officers are expected to be appointed across the province. The incompetence of the in-service public prosecutors is said be one of the two main reasons why there are so many pending cases in ATCs. The other one is said to be the inadequate number of ATCs. According to the provincial authorities, the 700 public prosecutors appointed by the ‘previous’ government had stayed on even after having been dismissed, by seeking relief from courts. One only hopes that the new prosecutors are not appointed on the basis of their political affiliations as happened in the past, but on merit, so that the new cases in the queue are taken up without much loss of time. Also, the decision of the Apex Committee to deploy heavy contingents of police and Rangers along the Sindh-Balochistan borders to check two-way movements of terrorists is a timely and appropriate move to snuff the menace at its very source.

There is a perception, not entirely incorrect, that the civilian authorities of the province are not doing their part of the job in restoring peace in Karachi with any degree of competence while the Rangers have been performing beyond the call of duty, with increasing powers having been vested in their authority, causing some unease in quarters not entirely comfortable with the military’s increased presence in areas that should ideally form part of the civilian domain. Of course, this over-reliance on security personnel, especially those of the military, to maintain peace and order in Karachi cannot go on forever. It should be noted here that even more than the political government, it is perhaps the failure of the instruments of governance, which include the civil service, the legal fraternity, the judiciary and the police and so on, that have actually created this impression.

Hopefully, the decisions taken by the Apex Committee to reinforce these instruments of governance with competent people selected on merit would help address this perception, as well as the performance on the ground. The governance instruments should be able to immediately act on decisions taken in the past rather than waste time on preparing fresh plans. There is a possibility that if the operation in the interior of Sindh is carried out as efficiently as it was done in Karachi, the law enforcers are bound to step on the toes of the PPP and when that happens one expects the province’s ruling party to respond with the maturity that one expects from a nearly 50-year-old political party.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2015.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.