As the country's political leadership 'entertains' the nation with novel interpretations of the Constitution on the question of 'more provinces', the terrorists are no less enthusiastic in carrying forward their own murderous designs.
Early Thursday morning, they were out in the streets of Peshawar to hunt the police force, the only hurdle they find in their way to enforce their writ on this principal city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In two back-to-back bombings they killed seven persons on the spot, including a 12-year-old schoolboy. More than three dozen wounded in the incidents were taken to hospitals, some in a critical condition.
In a way, the terrorists seem to have conveyed that they have not left the scene. Also, that they would spare no trick of their trade to defeat the law-enforcing agencies in the latter's home front - this time carrying out the first bombing by a remote-controlled device and the second by dispatching a woman suicide-bomber to do the massacre. Not that the local administration of the provincial capital were caught unaware; the police was ready as ever but the challenge terrorists pose is too massive and multi-dimensional to be effectively encountered only by the use of counter-force.
As the holy month of Ramazan gets under way, when people's presence in congested bazaars is likely to thicken, putting in place fool-proof anti-terrorism arrangements will not be easy. None has claimed responsibility for the twin-bombing attack by now, though the KP officials say this could be the Taliban's work, who despite their much-touted claim of ushering in the 'real Islam' exhibit no hesitation in attacking mosques, shrines, schools and killing innocent people in bazaars and public places.
The terrorists kill at will, and if there is a lean period in their killing spree, it is because of their design and not that the police have succeeded in neutralising that menace. Who are these terrorists, from where do they come, who supplies them with the killing machines and why do they so mercilessly carry out their killing plans - these questions have been asked before many times and fully answered.
But the question that still has to be answered is: What is the government's strategy to combat and control terrorism in Pakistan? There is just no comprehensive plan so far to deal with terrorism in Pakistan. All that happens following a terrorism incident is nothing more than fire-fighting: agencies collect pieces of debris for forensic analyses, officials claim to be pursuing some hot leads and the ministers visit the injured in the hospitals - all of it is treated as a one-time incident. Do we know a terrorist ever punished anywhere in Pakistan?
And, if we think the CIA-operated drones will finally succeed in eliminating the curse of terrorism, we may be the victim of self-delusion. Only a day before, drones had killed some two dozen so-called suspected militants in North Waziristan - possibly provoking the reaction that we saw in Peshawar.
The problem is that even after having paid so dearly in terms of losses of life and limb and at an enormous cost of our image as a country and people, we have not been able to firm up a concrete anti-terrorism strategy, nor could raise a special force exclusively tasked to tackle this curse on a country-wide basis. How unprofessional those incidents of terrorism are treated on an item-by-item basis with very scarce inputs from the intelligence agencies. This ad hoc approach to deal Pakistan's biggest-ever challenge is beyond one's comprehension.
But even more disappointing is the political leadership's lingering nonchalance towards the problem of ubiquitous terrorism, stemming as it does not only as the by-product of the Afghan Jihad, but also as the end product of the disaffection that rules quite a large segment of our people. The fact is that conditions of semi-insurgency obtain in some parts of Pakistan and mini-revolts take place every now and then. This is where the law-enforcing agencies and even deployment of regular force would have limited remedial impact.
What is direly needed is political intervention; the issue of terrorism must come to the floor of the parliament - much before we go for an endless and essentially futile debate on the question of 'more provinces'. We shouldn't expect the generals to be telling the Americans that there would be no operation in North Waziristan, nor do we expect the military to be negotiating with the Taliban leaders.
It's for the government to come forward and engage the militants, extremists and even terrorists in a political dialogue. So much has gone wrong with us over the years as a polity - thanks to the despotic rulers thrown up by the military and the corrupt inefficient political leadership elected by the people themselves - that mere use of force will get us nowhere. Leadership is less about your needs, and more about the needs of the people and the country you are leading. The leadership, therefore, should be adapted to the particular challenges facing the nation. Today is the 65th Pakistan Independence Day and we wish all our readers a very happy Independence Day.