Since the beginning of this year, Lahore has been continually rocked by terrorism and more worms keep crawling out of the woodwork. While the problem of terrorists and their gigantic secret network is indeed overwhelming, law enforcement agencies seem to be trying to get their act straight and capture militants where they can find them.

Pakistani police and intelligence officials shot and killed three suspected Islamist militants in a raid on their hideout in Sheikhupura on Monday, and a fourth blew himself up. On Sunday, security agencies raided a house in an upscale neighbourhood of Lahore and arrested a man they said was also a member the TTP and had been wanted in connection with terrorism cases in the Punjab since 2010. The suspect, Hassan Zaheer, was accused of providing funds to the Taliban. Foreign currency and weapons were captured with him.

Since January, 31 people have been killed in Lahore in terror related incidents and 96 have been injured. At least eight persons, including two Policemen, were killed in a suicide attack on Police headquarters in Qila Gujjar Singh, Lahore. At least 15 persons, including 13 Christians and two Policemen, were killed when two suicide bombers attacked two churches near Youhanabad, sparking mob violence in which two other militants were killed. In May, least two people, including a police SI, were killed in a suicide attack near Gaddafi Stadium. The attack was foiled by the security arrangements at the time of Zimbabwe’s cricket tour to Pakistan.

Militants sanctuaries in Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal regions are dismantled and Taliban leadership is on the run. Last year, Peshawar and Lahore saw their terrible backlash. Even now the vultures are circling Lahore as the incidents above prove. The army has said that it has killed more than 2,700 militants since the launch of Zarb-i-Azb June, and destroyed more than 800 of their hideouts. While North Waziristan may indeed be “90 percent” clean of terrorists, we have no access to intelligence on who was killed and where, how many escaped, and what threats they may pose to Pakistan. The war in North Waziristan had no media coverage from the front lines and the facts given by the ISPR are not independently verifiable and we trusted the Army to do what is right. Now that the operation is almost over, we are blind to the nature of consequences and cannot predict what will happen next. Law enforcement agencies now have to make sure they break networks of arms smuggling and monetary funding to militants in cities like Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar.