ISLAMABAD: Senator Farhatullah Babar has said that a litmus test for the claim that the state has abandoned the policy of distinguishing between the good and bad militants is whether the state is sincere in vigorously pursuing the trial of Mumbai accused and investigation into the Pathankot attack.
“In the absence of a credible and sincere effort in this direction, the claim of abandoning the previous policy of protecting some and hounding other militants will sound hollow,” he said while addressing a seminar on implementation of the National Action Plan at a local hotel on Monday.
Addressing the gathering, he said that Justice Qazi Faez Isa’s report had rightly identified the malaise, and it offered a viable way for carrying forward the NAP.
Instead of dismissing it as an indictment of the government or overstepping of jurisdiction by the judge, it should be seen as a document that dispassionately offered solutions, he said. “For this, we should commend the judge and not reprimand him.”
The senator said that former FIA director general Tariq Khosa had sometime back explained in detail the results of investigations into the Mumbai attack in Pakistan, but somehow the case was not being pursued as vigorously as it should have been. “The state has to dispel the lingering suspicion that it is not interested in pursuing the case… Such an impression lent credence to the assertion that the state was still pursuing the old policy, which it claims to have discarded.”
The questions arising following the Pathankot attack and the replies received from the government to those questions also provided a basis for taking the issue forward, he said.
He said the people like Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Tariq Khosa had done great national service in the fight against militancy, for which they should be publicly acknowledged and appreciated.
He said there was a larger issue of civil-military disconnect, which needed to be addressed for the effective implementation of the National Action Plan.
“We should come out of the state of denial in matters of supporting militants as well as the civil and military being on the same page. Sooner we do so, the better it will be for fighting militants.”
