Pakistan must end duplicity on tackling menace

Terror attacks are acts of cowardice but few incidents drive home this point in such a terrifying manner as the suicide bombing in lahore on Easter day. The attacker targeted the most vulnerable members of society: Children and minorities. Indeed, it takes a special kind of perversion to set off a bomb outside a crowded children's park on a holiday. Yet, gruesome as this was, we have seen this before in Pakistan  most recently, when more than 140 students were gunned down at a school in Peshawar in December 2014. Then, as now, the Pakistani public which had largely become immune to the rising levels of violence stemming from sectarian hatred and intolerance, was shocked and angered. It demanded change and pressured its Government to crack down on terror networks. Then, as now, the Government responded with strong words and some action. Notably, the military ramped up its offensive in North Waziristan and along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Though the details of this operation remain vague, and there is no way to confirm, for instance, if the individuals the Army claims to have killed, were indeed militants, there is a general consensus that the situation has improved somewhat. Yet, as Sunday's blast, which comes on the heels of a similar attack at Bacha Khan University in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in January, stands proof, there is still a long way to go. In the days since the Easter attack, more than 5,000 people have been detained but it is to be seen how many are ultimately prosecuted. Also, Punjab has been a terrorist hotbed for years — the lashkar-e-Tayyeba, for example, has its sprawling headquarters in the Province's Muridke town. But the question here is: Will the Pakistani Government go after a group such as the leT, raised specifically for anti-India purposes, and which it portrays to the world as a charitable organisationIJ

Unfortunately, there is enough evidence to suggest that the Pakistani Government is still playing the old ‘good terrorist-bad terrorist’ game. Security agencies are believed to have diverted many of the ‘bad' terrorists focused on the domestic agenda towards Afghanistan (where the Afghan Taliban is once again a formidable force) and India (which has faced attacks from the recently resurrected Jaish-e-Mohammed). Only those jihadis who refused to play ball have since been targeted. This policy of duplicity is not just disappointing for India, which had hoped that bloodshed at home would compel the Pakistani establishment to let go of its jihadi proxies but also does not bode well for the Pakistani people — in a best case scenario, their Government may be able to contain the Pakistani Taliban, which is spreading the horror at home for now, but it's only a matter of time before another group rises to take its place. Remember that the Pakistani Taliban itself emerged from the Afghan Taliban, which the Pakistani establishment nurtures to keep its hold in Kabul.