Starting mark

The government has initiated a move to arrest some 6,000 terrorists in the country under the National Action Plan. These men, affiliated with extremist groups, have been identified and their names added to the Anti-Terrorism Act, making it legally possible for security agencies to take action against them. This of course is good news as far our fight against extremism and militancy goes. But there are questions to be asked. If the authorities knew of these individuals, why have we waited so long to initiate action against them? Would it not have been prudent to make a quicker start off the block? By delaying the process of bringing these people to justice we have, in effect, allowed them to work with the various banned outfits they belong to and further strengthen them. This makes the overall task of dealing with terror far harder.
However, the fact that something is being done comes essentially as good news. Let us hope the plan goes beyond the cosmetic and turns into something real. As many as 3,000 of these extremists belong to KP. This is not really surprising given the structure of militancy in our country. But what is worth noting is that 2,200 are based in Punjab – a province whose rulers in the past have claimed it had no militancy problem. The rest are scattered around the remainder of the country. It seems obvious that Punjab needs to become a much greater focus of attention in our battle against extremism than it is now. It is strange that the multiplication of groups with extremist agendas has been ignored here for so long. The provincial government needs to answer some questions on this – but most importantly it must take action and register cases against those on the list, investigate them and ensure the process of justice is carried through in the hope that, by doing this, we will stand a better chance of winning what is certainly a decisive battle against terrorism that has wrecked havoc on our country.