As I pan the morning papers, I am sad and angry at what is going on in our country.
Saddened because of the un-necessary loss of life from the suicide bombing of the emergency 15 building in Lahore, where at least 26 people including 14 policemen, 6 army personnel, 6 civilians including a 12 year old boy have lost their lives and scores of others injured by the sheer magnitude of the bomb blast.
This is the seventh major attack to hit the city of Lahore since Jan-2008. The newspaper headlines are screaming bloody murder. This blast has been widely condemned by the Pakistani Leadership as well as the world and the usual statements are being read-out by the Interior Ministry that the perpetrators will be caught.
Angry because the provincial administration including the civilian security apparatus which is mainly the Police have not woken up to the fact that we are in “A State of War”. Their attitude and behaviour which can be best described as callous and casual towards a mortal enemy, which is determined, wily and cunning.
The Punjab government had claimed that it had implemented “strict security measures” to prevent such incidents from repeating after the Liberty and Manawan incidents. It is obvious that this claim has been blown to pieces.
Which brings be back to the attitude and behaviour prevailing amongst the civilian administration including the security apparatus towards security alerts provided by the federal government in the form of written memos in the wake of the ongoing operations in NWFP. Unfortunately neither the provincial government, nor the Punjab Police heeded their advice.
The Police in Pakistan is de-motivated, dis-organised, under paid, terribly corrupt. Not only that the “Elite Force” in the Police is tasked the job of protecting the VVIPs of our country 24/7, leaving the people of this country exposed to the naked aggression of the mortal enemy. Whereas, their prime duty is to provide protection to the common citizens of our country.
These days if you have the chance to venture to the major cantonments located in all major cities, you will see the “heightened security” put in place by the Pakistan Army for obvious reasons.
The civilian administrations of all the provinces along with their security apparatus need to be cognizant of the facts aforementioned and put in place similar security measures to protect the government infrastructure as well as places like malls, parks, shopping centres which are “high risk” targets for these barbarians.
If this means that the local public has to face certain hardships (as if they aren’t already) then so be it. Key roads and thoroughfares need to be blocked-off for general traffic, the Police resources need to be utilised in a fair and equitable manner for the protection of the citizens and the VVIPs. Increase the strength of the Police forces along with proper training in urban warfare to counter the menace of suicide bombings and other attacks. Heightened Intelligence gathering and co-operation amongst all the security agencies and actually taking action on the intelligence and evidence provided.
Lastly change the mind-set and behaviour of our Police. Unless they don’t understand and realise the “dangers within” posed by these so called Muslims, we will be watching the same scenes of carnage repeated (God Forbid) on our television screens.
May Allah provide us with the strength to defeat our enemies!
Ameen!
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