On May 27, 2011 Hangu was jolted with a suicide bomb that engulfed more than 38 valuable lives of the innocent people. This blast was not the first of its kind as in the recent past many blasts were carried out in the same fashion in Hangu and its surroundings and elsewhere in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province. Yet another blast took Peshawar by storm in the wee hours of Wednesday May 25, when a suicide bomber hit the CID Police Station that resulted in the killing of ten persons killed and several injured. Earlier, on May 22, round about six militants in Karachi made mockery of our defense and intelligence agencies and defense institutions by capturing PNS Mehran base in Karachi for more than 16 hours. They were able to kill ten Navy officials and the destruction of two P-3C Orion aero plans by hitting them with rockets. 14th May brought a bloody day for Shabqadar in KPK when two suicide bombings annihilated more than ninety FC personals at the gate of Shabqadar Fort. Moreover, there have been so many incidents in the past that can be rightly termed as the verbatim of these attacks. There is a great amount of resemblance between the incidents that follow one another in a rapid succession. There is a continued string of attacks going on unabated despite government’s claims of beefed security. Thus it becomes necessary to ask from the concerned authorities that as to how same kinds of attacks with utmost similar tactics take place but the culprits are not brought to book. Moreover, no official responsible is held for his negligence. To worsen the situation it is noted that no official or politician has the moral courage to sacrifice his position.
It is extremely disappointing and frustrating that we as a nation lack sense of responsibility. We have not learnt at any stage of our lives to accept responsibility for being incorrect. Whatever mayhem that happens around us, due to our sheer negligence, does not move us from our prefabricated positions. There is hardly any instance, in Pakistan, where any official or politician incharge has resigned from his positions as a result of any criminal laxity that allowed the happening of an untoward incident. If we look at the past ten years scores of terrorist incident happened which could have been easily averted merely by vigilance and watchfulness. But these were the result of negligence and slackness of the officials at duty. Dozens of committees were formed, matters were interrogated and reports submitted but no one was found guilty and hence everyone got a clean chit. The most shocking aspect this whole grim situation is that no official responsible has tendered his resignation voluntarily.
In civilized and mature societies officials do not hesitate in tendering their resignations if any ugly incident happens under their ministry. India is a living example of this practice where many ministers preferred to sacrifice their posts to save their personal and moral ethics. It is apropos to quote the example of 26/11 attack, in Bombay, in which two top Indian officials incharge resigned within no time after the Bombay wreckage. The first one to show moral courage was Indian National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan who decided to step down from his seat. He was followed by an Indian home minister Shevraj Patel who accepted the failure of his ministry and tendered his resignation. This highest sense of responsibility is the excellent exhibition of professionalism. This is one of the reasons that Bombay attacks never visited India.
However, the case of Pakistani politicians and officials is bizarre in this regard. Whenever any bomb blast occurs the only activity that is noticeable to the general public is that President, PM and Interior Minister have taken immediate notice of the incident and the IGs have been asked to submit report. Whatever happens afterwards is a big misty to know. Here is a brief post mortem of the interior ministry performance of the last two years. On March 3, 2009, militants attacked the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in the Punjab the capital city of Lahore, killing eight people. On March 30, 2009, a police training center just outside Lahore was attacked and eight people killed. The unprecedented assault on the military’s General Headquarters (GHQ) in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on October 10, 2009 displayed the growing sophistication and intent of the militants and the complete ineptness of the security agencies. Finally, on October 15, 2009, three teams of militants launched a coordinated assault in Lahore, attacking the regional headquarters of the Federal Investigation Agency, the Manawan Police Training School, and the Elite Police Academy; the combined assault killed more than 30 people. This type of a poor show in any other country would have toppled the whole government but in Pakistan it moved nothing. Everyone kept his portfolio even after the worst of attacks.
One of the solid arguments behind tendering resignation is that if a senior official step forward and tenders resignation it put immense pressure on the other official incharges to perform well. It has been observed vigorously that self correction is a great agent for the improvement of an individual’s performance but this simple logic is difficult to understand for Pakistani nation. It is because of this reason that 6 to 10 militants hijacked PNS Mehran for more than sixteen hours, while fighting 1500 soldiers, and the interior minister instead of accepting responsibility of the incident says that it was not a security breakage. Heads must role to correct the situation.
