When will Pakistan learn its lesson?

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

Terrorism has become a synonym for daily life in Pakistan. Just says after people belonging to the minority sect were killed, a group of terrorists disguised as policemen stormed the Jinnah Hospital in the heart of Lahore late on Monday night killing 12 people and injuring 10 others. The attack was reportedly a bid to free a terrorist, Amir Muavia, captured in an injured condition during an attack on a mosque in the city last week. This is not an isolated incident but something which has become a part of daily life in Pakistan.

Many in India have regularly tried to show their solidarity with the people of Pakistan when such incidents have happened. But our western neighbours seem in no mood to reciprocate with our good gestures. They gave birth and nurtured these terrorists and seemed to be burning as the illegitimate child has gone out of hands. Terrorists no longer take orders from the Pakistani government; the ISI and the Pakistani Army in fact have regularly locked horns with Pakistan’s security forces. Suicide bombing and blowing up military installation has become a norm in Pakistan.

Recently the arrest of a Pakistani in US for the alleged involvement in Times Square bombing has raised serious questions. The educated society in Pakistan wasn’t expected to behave the same as indoctrinated terrorists but that seemed to have exactly happened. It is no wonder that the US warned Pakistan of direct strikes within its territory if the roots of any attack in the US are traced back to Pakistan. The accused was the son of a high ranking military official in Pakistan.

The government in Pakistan may turn this accused a ‘non-sate actor’ as it had claimed when Ajmal Kasab was captured alive in India. But Pakistan as a society has to take responsibility of such events. What is it that goes inside the mind of an average Pakistani? Is it to kill everyone in the world who isn’t a Pakistani and follow Islam? The sad part is this is the exact picture that the entire world is seeing about a country which is both a perpetrator as well as a victim of terrorism.