Islamabad blast

While politicians launch verbal jibes and barbs at each other and indulge in the basest of politics, terrorists have been able to strike Islamabad. On Friday, a car packed with explosives detonated its load near Islamabad as it was driving into the heavily protected federal capital from Rawalpindi. A policeman was martyred while six others were injured; the two terrorists in the car also died. Pakistan has faced terrorism before. But after the military operations managed to make some headway, things had been somewhat quiet on this front and the TTP at least on paper had agreed to a ceasefire. While it was questionable whether this ceasefire truly existed, the venom within the attacks has now grown fiercer and more dangerous. We have seen attacks now in areas outside the most vulnerable locations lying along the Afghan border, although it is impossible not to draw connections between the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan and the Pakistani Taliban. The TTP’s resurgence following the fall of Kabul in August 2021 has been quite quick. The Afghan Taliban have meanwhile not taken any action against the TTP, instead saying that it is Pakistan’s internal matter and should be dealt with as such.

The TTP is banned under the law but has always continued to make its presence felt in one way or another. Tragically, the National Action Plan worked out post the APS attack in 2014 between all stakeholders has never come into effect. The failing on the part of politicians and establishment leaders to bring that plan into force needs to be discussed and some way found to remedy the failings which occurred then because of a lack of vision and perhaps most important of all a lack of genuine will. It is unfortunate that today, as the country remembers its founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, it also fears increasing militancy. No one has forgotten what the country faced when the TTP was in ascendancy. It becomes all the more important to remind ourselves of this today when our Christian citizens celebrate Christmas; minority communities know very well just how dangerous the TTP's murderous ways were for them. This December 25 we should ponder if we want to become the kind of country that the TTP would approve of – one where Christians cannot worship in peace on the most important day of the year for them. That is not the Pakistan Jinnah envisaged and that is not a Pakistan we should settle for.