Within less than a month, Pakistan's second largest city, Lahore was attacked again. On Monday this week, a group of heavily armed gunmen stormed an ill-guarded police training school and rampaged through the campus, throwing grenades, seizing 800 police trainees as hostage for hours, killing scores of policemen and civilians and wounding hundreds before being overpowered by the security forces in armoured vehicles and helicopters. At the end of the siege, eight militants were killed and for once in our history of unending terrorist attacks, six were captured alive. Who were the perpetrators, sponsors, organisers and accomplices in this crime? What was their objective? Any independent investigation should focus on these crucial questions and find credible answers. But for common man on the street, it was nothing but another dismal case of state failure in which innocent lives were lost with no one being held responsible for governmental security lapses. As in the case of Liberty Chowk attack, our electronic media covered live the whole Manawan episode from the beginning to its end. From this coverage, one could see an atmosphere of utter panic and chaos at the crime scene with primitive strategies being attempted to grapple with the challenge. A crowd of curious "spectators" had also gathered in front of the training school and almost on every rooftop in the neighbourhood. There was not even a semblance of the 'police line' alertness to protect the crime scene from "unwanted" intruders. One of the "perpetrators" found no difficulty in mixing freely in the crowd with a bag full of lethal explosives and hand grenades. He was noticed and captured only when he dashed toward the military helicopters which had just arrived there for the rescue operation. As the gory "drama" continued, conflicting reports of casualty figure and puzzling statements on the incident by governmental functionaries only confounded the ongoing "tragedy of errors." A sporadic comic relief was provided by our interior advisor who kept insisting that "it was an attack on Pakistan" and that a foreign hand was involved in the operation. He also claimed receiving prior intelligence reports suggesting the imminence of attacks but according to him, our police was "ill-equipped" to deal with this kind of situation. He was right. The police was indeed ill-equipped and did present a pathetic look when we saw live, on the TV the poor Inspector General of Police huffing and changing bullet-proof jackets one after the other to find the right size for him. Apparently there was none. Finally, he had to do with an undersized one leaving a good part of his broad chest uncovered. The manufacturers of our security equipment will surely have to cater for special sizes of our healthy and bulky security personnel. The worst spectacle of our police being "ill-equipped" was however witnessed at Liberty Chowk attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers last month when we lost, our six "elite" force personnel escorting the Sri Lankan team. They were killed only because their guns were jammed and did not fire. And yet, those who placed them in that position of "sitting ducks" continue to remain unscathed. In the Manawan case as at Liberty, it now transpires that there were prior reliable intelligence reports alerting the Punjab government of an imminent terrorist attack. No one took serious notice of those warnings as the police had just gone through a massive reshuffle in the province. The ease with which the terrorists managed access to their target in one of the most densely populated localities of Lahore speaks volumes of the governmental security handling under the now defunct Governor Raj. It is now generally agreed that terrorists would not have had a freer hand in carrying out attacks both at Liberty and Manawan had the elected government and its carefully established police set-up in Lahore not been dislocated through a Byzantine political intrigue culminating into an unwarranted Governor Rule in the province. Additionally, systemic and functional miscarriages resulting from the Police Ordinance (2002) are no less responsible for the overall deterioration in our law and order situation. Our police as an institution and as a professional service have been corrupted to the core by their self-indulgent political "masters" who have been using this institution only as a handy tool for the advancement of their opportunistic political interests. It is also a fact that today most of our police personnel are not on law and order duty nor are they trained in preventing crimes or fighting terrorism of any sorts or scale. Their sole preoccupation today is with VIP security with no time or energy left for public security. Thousands of policemen are seen lined up everyday with no exception along VIP routes. The Manawan terrorist operation was an act of terrorism not different from the one in Mumbai in November last year or the one involving the attack on Sri Lankan team at Lahore earlier last month. All three had the same fingerprints, and were a classic example of state failure in preventing the terrorists' free access to their targets. The timing of these attacks was not co-incidental. They all came at a time when the new US president was drawing up his new strategy for this region. No wonder, on their intent and benefit outreach, assumptive theories of all sorts abound. But irrespective of what the underlying mission or intent of terrorists in all these cases might be, what is of direct and grave concern to us in Pakistan is that our country is now under siege. These perpetrators are neither Muslims nor Pakistanis. They are on a suicidal mission, and in the process are striking at the very roots of our county's future as an independent state. The Manawan attack was not an attack on police recruits. They just came in the line of the "terrorist" fire. It was an attack on Pakistan itself. This is what the interior advisor said during the siege. It was a "surgical" strike in the heart of Pakistan's second largest city reminiscing so much of the Liberty as well as the earlier Mumbai attacks. It had the same signature and almost an identical script. The body language of the perpetrators showed no difference. They were there to go for the kill with little or no fear of death or capture. As for the security blunders, the provincial government was doubtless too busy in manipulating the political scene. No matter what the governor has to say on his administration's performance, it is clear if foolproof preventive security in both cases had been in place, the terrorist attacks in Lahore could have been averted. There would have been no attackers and no casualties. And we would still be playing international cricket. Unfortunately, no one has taken the responsibility for these acts of gross security failure. In India, the Union home minister as well the Maharashtra State deputy chief minister resigned immediately after the Mumbai attacks. No heads seem to be rolling in Pakistan. No one ever has had the guts to come forward and accept the responsibility in such tragedies. Perhaps there is no such norm in our system or culture. But the need for accountability cannot be left unnoticed now that we have an independent judiciary arid the elected government back in its office. It is a case for suo moto attention. For Pakistan, this is a testing period. It faces a double jeopardy. On the one hand, terrorism is at its peak afflicting our society as an endemic scourge, and on the other we are facing unprecedented US pressure to free our tribal areas of terrorist sanctuaries. The global profile that we now carry is largely because of the centrality of our role in the global War On Terror. Pakistan has staked everything in this war, and has paid a very heavy price by killing thousands of its own people. Yet it is being blamed for "not doing enough." If the US is genuinely convinced of Pakistan's key role in this campaign, it must show greater sensitivity to Pakistan's legitimate concerns on repeated violations of its sovereign independence and territorial integrity and also on India's role in Afghanistan. It must not make demands that Pakistan can never deliver. It must not raise benchmarks that we cannot meet. If Obama's new strategy can work for Washington, why should not it be allowed to work for Pakistan? Also remember; you can never buy or conquer peace. Instead of killing people, you must win their hearts and minds. The writer is a former foreign secretary