After witnessing the fate of Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, who was one of the most favoured non-state actors of Pakistan, it is natural to wonder what awaits Hafeez Muhammad Saeed, who is no less important non-state actor of the Land of the Pure.
The difference between the two is that while Mansoor lived in a safe haven in Balochistan along with the Haqqani Network, Saeed leads a pompous life near Lahore, spreading his Islmist dogma across Punjab and beyond, and training jihadis of all hues for action in India, Afghanistan and the Middle East.
Saeed has been able to have his way because the State is allowing him to do so. Like it did in the case of Mullah Mansoor. This was the reason why he could masquerade as Wali Muhammad, hold a computerised national identity card, (CNIC), and make as many as nine trips to UAE and Iran.
Harbouring terrorists and facilitating their movements across the country and beyond the borders are not a new development in Pakistan that should cause alarm. It has been the time tested state policy in pursuance of its geo-political and strategic goals down the years.
The United States of America, USA, may be delivering homilies to Pakistan today but it is this land of El Dorado that has been guilty of converting Pakistan into a terrorist ghetto under the Cold War creed. It had one too many opportunities to force Pakistan’s hands but for reasons of its own short sighted policies, and multi-speak, Washington has allowed Pakistan to become a squint-eyed monster, who has resolved not to rest till Kabul becomes a vassal state and Kashmir becomes annexed.
No surprise therefore, neither anyone who matters in Pakistan nor anyone who is worried about what is happening inside Pakistan takes the American soliloquies seriously. The smoking out of Osama bin Laden in 2011 and elimination of Mansoor in one drone hit don’t ring alarm bells. And Pakistan has learn to take such acts in its stride.
GHQ Shura has developed a SOP- standard operating procedure – expose the militants beyond their shelf life to the American drones while maintaining a façade of injured innocence for domestic consumption. General Pervez Musharraf introduced this SOP when President George Bush Junior pushed him to the wall literally. It suited both sides though under General Musharraf and General Raheel Sharif, Pakistan Army has ensured that America does not cross the red line and hurt the core interests of the country. Whenever it did in its quest for peace in Kabul, Rawalpindi stopped Washington in its stride, and made the America-fancied Taliban/Haqqani interlocutor to disappear and become a missing person.
And the White House and State Department, in their considered wisdom, subscribe to Pakistan promoted and sustained view that without Pakistani props, peace will remain a mirage in the war ravaged landlocked Afghanistan.
The US is unwilling to test the Pakistan theory and therein lies the rub.
It is this unwillingness that enables Pakistani leadership to get away with effortless ease.
A case in point is the honoured status of Pakistani citizen enjoyed by Mullah Akhtar Mansoor. He was provided with a computerised Pakistani national identity card (CNIC) as Wali Muhammad of Killa Abdullah district.
Only bonafides citizens of Pakistan are entitled for the CNIC; these are issued after verification of family history. There are only two ways to bypass the system – forge documents or get them with official help.
Since there is no question mark over Mansoor’s Pakistani card and travel documents, official patronage alone gifted them these precious documents.
Now, after the Mansoor myth lays shattered, the Interior Minister of Pakistan Chaudhry Nisar is acting indignant; he has ordered a re-verification of all CNICs in the country, and warned of severe punishment for fake CNIC documents.
It is no more than a public relations exercise for some brownie points on Capitol Hill. More so because the reverification will take as many as six –months, and the issue will soon be over taken and forgotten by another headline grabbing event.
What new punishment Nisar Chaudhry will award? He has not spelt out; in fact he is economical on truth. The truth is that under Pakistani law, forgery and fake CNICs are serious crimes that invite severest punishment. Scandalous state of affairs this is. Nothing more, nothing less.
Equally scandalous is the ranting of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed against the United States at rallies held to denounce the US drone strike that had killed Mullah Mansour. He is a wanted man, who carries a US bounty of $10 million. Yet he has been able to hold a power show of his Jamaat-Ud-Dawa which is on the UN blacklist, and vowed to “evolve a strategy against the growing hostility of the world superpower”.
JuD did not confine itself to one rally. It has held a series of rallies from Sialkot to Lahore and from Peshawar to Karachi. Its activists burnt the American flag and chanted anti-US slogans. Will Nisar Chaudhry order another verification drive against the antecedents of JuD and Saeed? He may going by the precedent he has set for the country.
– by Allabaksh