Nation reminded of deep scars of soul

While the scars of soul inherited from East Pakistan debacle had not yet been erased from our hearts and minds that the Army Public School tragedy occurred on the same day, i.e. December 16. This day will be remembered in Pakistan’s history as well as human history as one of the blackest days of humankind, given the bestial acts of terrorists perpetrated on the innocent most segment of any society, the children.

Whatever narrations have come in the wake of this tragedy, from the eye-witnesses amongst the surviving children or others, they tell us a tale of horrible things that happened to these lovable ones at the hands of the enemies of civilisation and humankind.

No comparison can be and should be drawn between this Qiamat (Apocalypse) and other acts of terrorism carried out in any part of the world at a larger scale. In fact, it is not a question of the scale rather it is a question of the mercilessness involved in the act. On this measure, the APS attack was a bigger tragedy than even the twin towers tragedy.

It is, however, the most deplorable thing to note that a large part of the nation and many of our state setups, barring the armed forces, waited for such a horrible occurrence to wake up. The fact is that the armed services had been continuing with their operations of different scales for more than a decade but, unfortunately they were not fully owned by the key stakeholders in the state machinery. Only at the time of major Swat operation, the national political leadership including the then Nawaz-led Opposition showed some measure of willingness which, however, did not carry that much seriousness of endorsement that the nation saw at the start of Operation Zarbe Azb, after the APS incident that led to the martyrdom of more than 120 schoolchildren who were subjected to butchery and savagery of the highest order. This factor or the delay factor provided a very conducive enabling environment and sufficient time to terror networks to gain strength and spread their tentacles in the tribal belt and in the western border region with their proxy outfits starting their nefarious acts in other areas of Pakistan with the blessings of their ‘principals’ and ‘sponsors’ in TTP and some other organisations under the command of ferocious commanders like BaitullahMehsud, HakimullahMehsud, Maulvi Fazlullah, Mulla Akhtar Mansoor  and many others falling in this category.

It is on this account that it is said that all the state stakeholders need to be on the same page although desiring ‘same page’ condition amounts to sheer idealism. Things could have gone well even without this same page idealism had the state set-ups other than the armed forces properly understood the terror phenomenon with all its pros and cons as well as the background.

Unfortunately, a large number of prominent politicians, religious scholars, media persons and other influential opinion-leaders had remained confused on this issue for years and some of them had been carried away in the past with the apparent glory of terror operations that would be mistaken for holy war or a war of the outside world or a product of some international conspiracy.

With the passage of time, especially after the post-APS awakening, almost all of these wrong concepts and theories stand exposed. Now, the entire nation knows that irrespective of the fact that the West-led ISAF forces have carried out intensive operations inside Afghanistan and drones have been dropping bombs inside Pakistani territory, the fact remains that this war of terrorism is our war and not the war of others. Apply a simple logic and this clear perception will become yet clearer and that is: more than 95 per cent of the terror operatives and masterminds were of Pakistani origin and almost 100 per cent of the victims have been Pakistanis. How then it can be said to be others’ war. No doubt, others or outsiders exploited the situation but that too owed to our own infighting and internal weaknesses.

In the same context, the conspiracy theory also stands exposed. For decades, we have been putting the blame for all our tragedies on India’s RAW and Israel’s Mossad as if none of our own people had provided facilitation and logistics and accommodation or other kind of support to the identified and declared enemies. It is surprising that we blame the declared enemies for destabilising us and for attempting to destroy us. What good can be expected from the identified adversaries? But aren’t their facilitators, collaborators and active supporters among certain segments of Pakistani citizenry (albeit majority of Pakistani Sahulat-kaars or facilitators belong to the tribal belt) far bigger enemies of this nation and its innocent children? Certainly, these snakes in the grass are our real and much bigger enemies but it took a tragedy like APS to attain this clarity of perception. This is something very deplorable that the realisation came very late. nevertheless, better late than never.

Another myth is the myth of security lapse. The proven fact is that the attack on APS was not caused due to security lapse but on account of the snakes in the grass attacking their own brethren's innocent children. Even a man of common prudence knows that someone with the same identity and ideology is very difficult to be adjudged as an enemy beforehand. Secondly, ambushers always have an edge or an upper hand over their targets, even if the targets happen to be armed to the teeth and fully trained and organised.

Now some words on military courts' verdict that resulted in the execution of four terrorists involved in the APS attack. This decision has proved to be an effective deterrent and majority of people are satisfied with the verdict. The people have, however, expressed their surprise over the hue and cry that was being raised about such verdicts although these verdicts simply took into consideration the safety and protection of innocent people of Pakistan against the reign of terror unleashed by terrorists who have had a level playing field for decades in the country which was virtually turned into a theatre of destruction, fear and insecurity. And people do ask one important question in this regard: “Why can't the benefit of doubt favour the innocent people of Pakistan instead of favouring and protecting the terrorists?”