What Pakistan needs is strict border management so that nobody can enter this country without proper scrutiny, even if that means restricting quantum of transit trade to Afghanistan. This requires political will and a commitment of those at helm of affairs. To resist the temptation of a billion-dollar smuggling industry and their collaborators will be difficult. The bitter reality is truckloads of smuggled petrol that enters this country daily.
To date, not a single top bureaucrat or uniformed officer responsible for the prevention of such acts has been held responsible and given exemplary punishment. 61 innocent sons of Pakistan who joined the police service have fallen victim to a brutal terrorist attack near Quetta. If this is not a security and intelligence breach than what else do we call it? There will be the usual condemnations and meetings and thereafter it will be business as usual, with the PM, the President and others busy with their never ending spate of foreign tours. Yielding nothing but more expenses for a state burdened with debt and declining exports.
The arm chair security analysts including a former officer who deserted in former East Pakistan in 1971 will come on television talk shows and give us his opinions. What the ruling elite of this country have to understand is that they are there to protect the lives of ordinary citizens, instead of living in secure secluded housing colonies whilst the vast majority are exposed to all kinds of dangers. It should be food for thought that in a country which is so insecure from within and where law enforcement has failed in its primary objectives, those who are employed for specific tasks are too busy in developing housing societies for commercial profiteering which has adversely affected their professional capabilities.
ALI MALIK,
Lahore, October 25.