Policy, strategy and leadership deficit in countering terrorism

The terrorist attack on Police Training College (PTC) Quetta on October 24, including the loss of 62 police and army personnel and injuries to more than 100 others, is heart wrenching. The sacrifice of these martyrs who were the hope and support of their aging parents, grandparents, siblings and, in number of cases, of their young wives and toddlers has brought an untimely and tragic end to promising young lives and careers. The young martyred police personnel, though committed to laying down their lives for their country, would never have wanted to lose their lives as sitting ducks while sleeping unarmed and unguarded. This has brought irremediable losses, agonisingly painful mournings and perpetual suffering to the families of the martyrs.

This tragic incident coming on the heels of the terrorist attack on Quetta’s Civil Hospital on August 8, that resulted in death of 70 lawyers, warrants serious introspection and review of our counter-terrorism approach in the province. As for our internal and external security polices since 1950s, there is considerably less to be proud about and a good deal to be embarrassed about. We need to make amends quickly for our past and current failures in this regard as the citizens inside and international community abroad are increasingly frustrated with our lack of clarity vis-a-vis counterterrorism.

A brief evaluation here of the security and policing issues in Balochistan would help us have a better understanding of the problem. Role of police and intelligence operations is considered crucial in countering terrorism. An analysis of 648 terrorist groups operating in the world between 1968 and 2006, carried out by Rand Corporation, titled “How Terrorist Groups End” (2008) found that most groups ended because of operations conducted by police or intelligence agencies (40 per cent), or because they negotiated a political settlement with their governments (43 per cent ). Military force was seldom (7 per cent of the cases only) the principal reason that a terrorist group ended.

It is, therefore, important to acknowledge that the role of police and intelligence operations is fundamental when it comes to countering terrorism. Police and the intelligence agencies are better placed, by virtue of their training, functions, and frequent contact with community to penetrate terrorists network and eliminate them than military.

Police in Balochistan is handicapped even by Pakistani standards. Role and capacity of police in Balochistan is particularly limited. Police are performing policing functions only in about 10% territory of Balochistan, called ‘A’ areas, and the remaining about 90 per cent of the Balochistan, called ‘B’ areas, are policed through Levies — a paramilitary force lacking basic police training, intelligence gathering and investigation skills. Starting in 2003, all the ‘B’ areas in Balochistan were progressively converted into ‘A’ areas by 2007. It was unfortunately reversed in 2010 — policing and security became a victim to politics of expediency. Levies are preferred locally by the tribal leaders over police as they are more aligned to their local tribes than to the law of the land.

The narrow political interests keep taking precedence over larger security interests of the citizens of Balochistan and the rule of law. As a consequence of two disparate policing arrangements, ironically the Balochistan Police are strangers in the ‘B’ areas of their province and likewise the Levies are strangers in the ‘A’ areas. This arrangement handicaps critical policing functions, such as, intelligence gathering, investigations, and inter-district coordination between police authorities compromising the security needs of the people of Balochistan.

Investment on the police, which is operational only in 10 per cent of the Balochistan, remains inadequate. Take, for example, the budgetary allocations in 2015-16 to Counter Terrorism Departments (CTDs) in the four provinces: Punjab allocated 4.7 per cent of total police budget to CTD, KP 3.6 per cent , Sindh one per cent and Balochistan mere 0.7 per cent. Sindh and Balochistan have been unable to initiate noteworthy steps to develop police capacity, especially, in terms of counterterrorism, which is one of the major reasons for almost never ending and continuously increasing role of paramilitary forces in these two provinces.

The provinces, that have invested in police and have given them operational space, as is the case in K-P and Punjab to varying degrees, are performing better in responding to the monster of terrorism than politically defanged Sindh Police and neglected Balochistan Police. The PTC Quetta with low and vulnerable boundary walls, inter alia, was an easy target. The current Inspector General of Police Balochistan publicly raised the issue with his Chief Minister (CM) during the latter visit to the school on September 6. The CM promised the required funds. But it was perhaps too little too late on part of police and political leadership.

Although the security plan of the PTC Quetta was abysmally inadequate and there is a serious security failure on part of police, however, in my view the PTC Quetta tragedy is an even bigger leadership failure on part of police and political executive of Balochistan. Police leaders must develop a habit of speaking out for legitimate needs of the constabulary and the organisation they are heading. The culture of obedience and deference to authority is deeply ingrained in our society and country’s history. The police leadership need to differentiate between their role and flawed cultural norms.



It is, essentially, the responsibility of the political executive to exercise their authority and set priorities in budgetary allocations. Security of the police trainees is the duty of the police leadership and the political executive. Collaboration between the intelligence agencies and the police is also critical to counter-terrorism. K-P and Karachi have recently experienced effective collaboration between the police and the Intelligence Bureau (IB). The scope of police and IB collaboration is limited in Balochistan due to absence of the police in the ‘B’ areas of Balochistan. This deficit needs to be plugged in at the earliest. The security of the ‘A’ or the ‘B’ areas of Balochistan cannot be augmented in isolation. If we continue to ignore the modern policing needs of about 90 per cent of Balochistan, we can neither protect the ‘A’ areas nor the ‘B’ areas effectively.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2016.

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