After the brutal attack on the Army Public School in December last year in which 145 people lost their lives including 132 children, there was a paradigm shift in Pakistan. For the first time in years all the stakeholders in the country were unanimous in their resolve to purge Pakistan from the cancer of terrorism and militancy that has claimed thousands of lives of innocent Pakistanis. Military courts were established and National Action Plan (NAP) was put into place.
The recent operation by Rangers in Karachi against convicted criminals bore fruit as many convicts were arrested that included some high profile criminals too, one of them was the murderer of journalist Wali Khan Babar. However despite such a successful operation the reaction from certain political parties was questionable indeed. The Rangers operation was conducted solely against militant elements, not against any political party. The Rangers are not a political entity, they are not the ones to take sides, and in fact paramilitary forces only conduct such operations based on solid evidence.
A few political parties went to the extent of condemning the Rangers operation, as a nation plagued with militant elements and terrorism it is utterly surprising that we still haven’t learnt any lesson despite sacrificing so many of our brothers, sisters fathers and mothers. The operation in Karachi was started after the consensus of political parties, in fact the major call for the operation was raised by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) but once the operation entered the crucial phase the political parties have seem to withdrew their support. All political parties should unanimously support the operation started by military and paramilitary forces. The operation’s objective is to cleanse the country of criminals no political party should feel threatened; instead criminal elements must be denounced. We can no longer afford the patronizing of such miscreants.