Two years have passed since the National Action Plan (NAP) to deal with the terrorist threat to peace and security was launched and attempts to prepare a score card are wholly in order. Practically every commentator on NAP’s implementation has written it off as a failure, or as having expired. The public at large also is displaying a palpable mood of disappointment and frustration.

It is not fair to paint the NAP story in black and white. There have been some gains and a little progress and also setbacks and deficiencies; a correct balance sheet must include successes and failures both. An evaluation must also take into consideration the fact that NAP envisages some activities that could be carried out quickly while in the case of many other activities only initial steps towards long-term processes could be taken in the short term.

The 20 points in the NAP may, for the sake of convenience, be divided into four sections.

In group one fall the points relating to creation of courts, trials and punishment (points 1 and 2). The plan said the execution of convicted terrorists was to continue; it has continued with a vengeance. Along with terrorists, many convicted of other offences have been hanged. The demand for the creation of military courts was conceded and the judiciary went out of its way to legitimise their existence.

No clear answer is available as to what extent these steps have achieved the desired results. The civil society’s reservations about executions and military courts could have been set aside only by a proper evaluation report from the authorities. If any such exercise has been carried out the results have not been communicated to the people and the doubts in their minds are yet to be dispelled.

The second group comprises media/ information related steps listed at points 11 and 14. The former point had called for a ban on glorification of terrorism and terrorist organisations through print and electronic media. It is difficult to say whether any progress has been made in this area. Even the term "glorification" has not been duly defined. So long as leaders of associations already banned are showered with honours by both print and electronic media glorification of terrorism will not cease.

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The other point in this category (No 14) calls for "tangible measures against abuse of internet and social media for terrorism" and it has been over-subscribed in the form of the cyber crime law and the sweeping powers allowed to Pemra. These measures remind one of the pre-Pasteur method of killing disease germs with carbolic acid and that killed the healthy germs as well. Whether the law will deal only with terrorism and terrorists and whether it will also be used to suppress dissent, freedom of expression and the right to know remains to be seen.

In the third group fall territory-specific objectives -- zero tolerance for militancy in Punjab (point No 15), taking the Karachi operation to its logical conclusion (No 16), empowering Balochistan government to secure political reconciliation (with dissidents) (No 17), and dealing with the Afghan refugees (No 19).

Unfortunately, there are more minuses than pluses in this area. Punjab is home to perhaps a majority of terrorist outfits and its government has offered little evidence of "zero tolerance" for them. The Karachi operation has been going on and is said to be in full swing. What is meant by "logical conclusion" is, however, not clear. The flaw in the scheme, that is, exclusion of people’s representatives from the work of achieving peace, remains unattended.

As for Balochistan, a provincial government that does not seem free to manage its own affairs will hardly be able to effect reconciliation with the political dissidents, especially if they are persistently demonised by the establishment. The Afghan refugees are under pressure to return home but the public is not aware of a comprehensive plan to deal with all the issues repatriation poses.

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The fourth, and the largest category of the NAP points requires administrative action along a wide range and performance may be judged from the following table:

Surprisingly enough, the many achievements recorded under Operation Zarb-e-Azb are in a category of their own. During the two-years of NAP, 381,000 operations were launched by the military forces, 70 terrorist camps were sealed, and 175,000 people detained.

According to statistics for three years, 4,773 terrorists have been killed while 507 jawans have also died, and 1,011 terrorist dens have been destroyed. The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) also showed that terrorist attacks in 2015 were 45 per cent lower than in 2014. These gains are impressive but the people still live in a state of fear.

These military claims of success have often raised the question whether the civil administration has fulfilled its part of the job. At one stage, Mr Sartaj Aziz tried to allay public concerns on this score but evidence on the ground does not inspire confidence that the needful has been done.

It seems the government has been fairly active in acquiring more coercive powers, some of which target the whole population, but has not been able to overcome its fears of taking on terrorists parading themselves under religious banners. Its most glaring, and critical, failure is its inability to blunt the militants’ exploitation of the people’s and their leaders’ religious sentiments.

Failure to tear off the terrorists’ religious cloak prevents the administration from cleaning up the nurseries of terrorism. All the noise about preventing the re-emergence of banned outfits and ending glorification of terrorism is exposed as mere hot air when the son of the founder of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is found free to seek election to the Punjab Assembly and, indeed, polls more votes than all other rival candidates put together.

More and more commentators have started pointing out the impossibility of overcoming terrorism that is spawned by the latest heresy in Islam without the state’s pull-back from the road to a theocracy. So long as the state chooses to ignore this writing on the wall, Pakistan may continue chopping down trees here and there in the forest of its own creation but will not be able to find its way out of the woods.