When a bomber is not a bomber

Fiasco: govt mistakenly identifies two living individuals as the suicide bombers in Karachi shrine attack.

With militant attacks terrorising the country on an almost weekly basis, law-enforcement agencies are under pressure to show that they are doing something, anything, to bring the perpetrators to justice. In the days after attacks, the interior minister usually announces the name of the suicide bomber responsible in a much ballyhooed news conference. The matter is then promptly forgotten. But, as the aftermath of the Abdullah Shah Ghazi in Karachi attack has shown, even the relatively simple matter of identifying the suicide bomber can be botched. Initially, it was said that one of the two attackers had been identified – and the next day this was retracted after the alleged ‘bomber’ turned up at his parents’ home. Then, it was claimed that one of the attackers was a resident of Daska, a town near Sialkot and details were released to the media. It has now emerged that the alleged suicide bomber is actually a drug addict, is very much alive and, in fact, had never set foot in Karachi. This is an embarrassment for the government on many levels. First, there is the pain and suffering they have caused the misidentified man and his family. Then, there is the question of competence. If we can’t trust the authorities to correctly identity a suicide bomber, whose head and body parts are found at the scene of the attack, can we rely on them to gather the intelligence that is necessary to prevent attacks?

Clearly, the government jumped the gun in making the announcement. For this, an agitated public also needs to share the blame. It is partly our desire to get answers as quickly as possible that led to the government identifying the suicide bomber before the DNA results were in. The authorities should not have acted in haste. Terrorism investigations are not PR exercises meant to placate the angry and they should not be treated as such. Through its incompetence, the government has now raised question marks about all previous investigations. Can we be sure that those implicated in previous attacks were actually culpable? We are repeatedly told that we are in a war with militants. But this war cannot be won solely through military means. Good intelligence and investigative skills are vital for victory. Now, though, trust in the government will be at an all-time low – and deservedly so.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2010.