Terrorist attack in Lahore

Commercial ventures must not be allowed to be constructed in the vicinity of security installations

LAHORE: The terrorist attack at the Police Lines in Lahore is yet another in a series of attacks on law-enforcement agency offices and installations located in busy areas within cities. Pakistan is fighting a war against home-grown terrorists, funded from within and outside the country and such reprisals should be expected. We need to realise that terrorists we face are savages who consider any location associated with law enforcement or sensitive agencies to be soft targets for brutal attacks, with no regard for lives of innocent children, women and unarmed men. What we need to understand collectively as a nation is that we must prepare ourselves for the long run and take remedial measures to prevent loss of innocent lives. The tendency to allow commercial ventures, marriage halls, plazas, etc. to be allowed to be constructed in the vicinity of security installations and offices needs to be eliminated and reversed.

When the Police Lines area was established at its present location, other than the Don Bosco School, there were hardly any commercial buildings there. Over the years, unfortunately, state land allocated for sensitive security agencies, law enforcement and government offices, barracks, etc. has undergone a sea change, with profitable ventures permitted to be built. City governments and cantonment boards in the country, serving as regulatory agencies, have knowingly given permission for such commercial ventures to be built on state land allocated for security purposes, making them vulnerable to security lapses. Areas close to the border have seen housing societies, marriage halls and farm houses spring up. It is time that a line was drawn between welfare projects and commercial ventures. No state institution should be allowed to jeopardise the life of ordinary citizens or members of uniformed services, under the garb of welfare.

Cantonment areas, once exclusively used for state-owned barracks, residences and CSD shops for men and women serving the country, now have commercial housing societies, plazas, restaurants, entertainment centres, etc. built within them.

Malik Tariq Ali

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th,  2015.

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