A new Joint Investigation Team Report on Baldia Town FIR has been made public. For some strange reason authorities made it public two months later and only with the intention to create news on media since no legal action has been taken as per the suggestions made in the JIT.

The JIT puts forward a lot of new facts and asks a new FIR to be registered, clearly mentioning old/new affiliates/members of MQM. Unlike the old JIT, this one is not relying on just hearsay evidence and hence puts forward more cogent evidence.

Why isn’t the FIR being filed? Why aren’t the people named being tried? This is the real problem eating Pakistan from within.

Government, LEAs or establishment – whatever we may call it – none of them is interested in solving our problems of violence, extortion, extremism and terrorism. They are only interested in taming the troublemakers. They just want to continue cornering them, and politically pressurising them, so compromises can be reached and people can continue to be used for whatever purposes.

At this moment MQM itself should volunteer the members named in the JIT for investigations. But neither would any party volunteer its members, nor would any other ruling party file the case. The LEAs and establishment will continue to pick up and arrest foot soldiers, but no one will dare to go to the roots of the problem and apprehend those who provide the money, influence and instructions to cause menace.

Mumtaz Qadri will be tried but no one will touch Mufti Hanif Qureshi, the man who inspired him. Clerics will be picked for hate speech but no one will touch Ahmed Ludhianvi, who prints, publishes and leads the hate narrative. Taliban fighters will be picked up but no one will touch Sami ul Haq who rubs shoulders with generals and takes pride in Taliban commanders being students in his madrassa. Students advocating Caliphate and Daesh will be picked but no one will touch Abdul Aziz who literally rules over his own mini country in Pakistan. Target killers will be picked from Lyari, Orangi Town and Kati Pahari, etc but no one will touch the politicians who back them.

Instead generals like Musharraf will make them ministers and offer them NROs. Baloch fighters will go missing, but the sardars inspiring them to fight will always have invitation to be bought out by whomsoever is willing to pay more and they get immunity on surrender. Generals will make claims that terrorism has no place in Pakistan, but the likes of Hamid Gul will continue to command respect long after they are gone and perhaps even inspire some currently in service.

We don’t solve problems; we tame them. And we continue to choose power politics over the lives of the poor, innocent and weak like the 259 burnt alive in Baldia Town.

NAP, JIT, NACTA, CTD and POPA are not allowed to be effective, and have been deliberately limited to just being fancy acronyms and talking points for those who claim to run the country and command its mandate. Martyred soldiers and police officers become evidence of our "resolve" and so this war against selective enemies continues to appear sacred. And civilians who were left with no choice but to sacrifice their life in the middle of a terror attack are turned into heroes to glorify their death, so the nation is more occupied with paying tributes and less worried about questioning the complacency and flawed policies of our security apparatus.

Compassion, love and tolerance are a part of our culture, with which we could have guided the world in this age of hate and phobias. But we have allowed ourselves to be reduced to the bad example of the country on the brink of failure which everyone wants to avoid. Our real development doesn’t lie in economic corridors. With or without Pakistan, corridors long or short will be built and the world will continue to move forward. Our real development lies in human development, and forming a country which guarantees rule of law, accountability and transparency, where no one is a sacred cow.

Today neither do I feel indebted to any minister nor do I feel gratitude towards any Army chief. I just feel like praying for the welfare and well being of Pakistan; my amazing country of 200 million which has every potential to lead the world if its people only learn to take care of each other.