Thursday was sad day for all of us. The bomb that ripped apart in the center of the dense Lal Shahbaz Qalandar gathering in Sehwan has, till the latest count, taken 88 lives with hundred injured. Daesh has taken the responsibility of the attack. The army has vowed to retaliate with full force and immediately.

This is not the only attack this week though. There was the Lahore suicide attack on the peaceful gathering of pharmacist. The teenager who blew himself up was a tall and lanky fellow. We know this because Taliban has recently released his picture being bid farewell by Fazlullah himself. There is now a screenshot of a TV channel’s streaming of the protest where the suicide bomber is seen staring into the eyes of DIG Traffic Captain (retd.) Ahmed Mubeen, one of the senior police officials amongst the 12 killed. What either was thinking at that time is anybody’s guess.

And then there were other attacks. February 15 saw suicide bombings in Peshawar and Mohmand agency. February 16 saw the IED explosion in Awaran. And previously, February 14 saw 2 policemen embrace martyrdom as they tried to diffuse a bomb in Quetta. In total, this bloody week took away well over a 100 Pakistani lives from us.

Not soon after the attacks, different groups took responsibilities. Two were claimed by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, one by Pakistan Taliban, one by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al Alami faction and ISIL took credit for Thursday’s bomb blast. Indeed, many have taken upon themselves to hurt our beautiful country.

And yet, it is not just them who do us harm.

Everyone seems to be going back to the very bold commission report on the Quetta massacre by Justice Qazi Faez Isa. In the report he pointed out how there were sections in the media that continued to glorify the terrorists and their mindset and that there were shortcomings at many levels within the provincial, federal and army institutions. He also derided the government for not having reliable data on the number of seminaries or the procedures to keep them in check. He criticised the interior minister for failing to activate the National Counter-Terrorism Authority. In the end, he gave a list of recommendations that were needed in order to avoid any more such loses.

It is high time the government goes back and reads what Justice Isa had to say. However, the problems in the system are even more graver. Thousands of suspects who get arrested end up being freed by the civil courts due to lack of evidence. NAP promised a reform of the judicial system, guaranteeing the judges security and confidence to uphold judgements of terrorists and likely suspects. No such reform has taken place. As they don’t enjoy the same security as did the ‘unknown’ judges of the military courts, most refuse to take the cases with as much diligence as is required from them.

Furthermore, law enforcement agencies continue to play the deadly game of good and bad militants. The vague differentiation has bitten the agencies constantly and yet they refuse to learn their lessons. In the south of Punjab sectarian militant organizations, some protected as political partners, others as military assets, continue to form roam freely. It is these organizations who give the logistical help to the terrorist groups outside of Pakistan as they execute the deadly attacks seen this week. While we continue to harp onto the same rotten mantra of externalizing our enemies, it is high time we hit the monsters we continue to breed in our own precinct. Of course all of this has been said before but to no avail.

The fact that ISIS executed and claimed credit for the Sehwan bombing is the most worrisome. Chances are that ISIS is looking for an alternate base of operations given Trump’s insistence of severe bombing at their bases in Syria and Iraq. They tried to form an infrastructure in the Pak-Afghan area before but could not succeed. However, as go some intelligence reports, they have now found partners and friends in members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba who now operate under Jamaatud Dawa. This is, as we saw on Thursday, a lethal combination and must not be underestimated. The security agencies need to speed up their actions, expand their intelligence networks and enhance their operations to ensure that LeT fails to become the backbone of ISIS here in Pakistan.

It is common sense to not proceed with half-hearted measured to ensure NAP however, it has been routine of this current government. No one knows how many more lives have to give away in order for the government to take the matter seriously. No one really knows.