Mixed messages again

It is difficult to reconcile the messages being given on the one hand by the Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan who is claiming post to the Quetta atrocity that ‘militants are no longer operating from Pakistan’; with that of the Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah who has said that there are 93 madrassahs in Sindh alone that have links with terrorist or banned organisations. The IM view is that any terrorist activity is generated and coordinated from outside the country (there is alleged to be evidence that the Quetta attack was run from Afghanistan). He went on to say that incidents of terror were the result of flawed security and intelligence and that agencies should cooperate more effectively. He may well be right in that respect, but his assertion that militants are no longer operating from Pakistan is a hostage to fortune he can ill afford.

It is no secret that some madrassahs have links as described above and have funding streams that are at best opaque and at worst invisible and untraceable. They have operated under the noses of provincial and federal agencies for decades and are about as secret in that respect as the recipe for chapattis. The CM has directed that the police and Rangers conduct operations against the 93 suspects forthwith because they ‘harbour terrorists.’ Not so says the IM who appears to contradict the Sindh intelligence agencies that seem very sure of their ground. It appears that around 250 madrassahs nationwide have been shut down in the wake of the National Action Plan (NAP), but these may only be a portion of those suspected by intelligence agencies of anti-state activities or having the potential thereof.

Terrorists do not spring fully-formed from the soil, they have to be grown and nurtured. Some of them are grown and nurtured within the madrassah system. We do not wish to tarnish the reputation of all madrassahs, because not all of them harbour or foster extremism — but some do. Mixed messages confuse and ill-inform an already confused and ill-informed public. We suggest a harmonisation meeting between the Sindh CM and the Interior minister at the earliest possible date.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2016.

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