Where Is The Political Will? – K.P.S. GILL

I believe that the same terrorist organisation, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), is behind the serial blasts in Srinagar and Mumbai. Of course, it is part of Pakistan’s well-thought out strategy, but the lack of political will to fight terror in the present government is also responsible for giving a fillip to terrorism.

Just a few days back, came the news that Al Qaeda had handed over full responsibility of rapidly spreading terror in India to Lashkar. The government should have realised that in addition to Jammu and Kashmir, cities such as Mumbai and Delhi, and other sensitive places, would be the targets of terror. The security agencies should have been directed that they were free to take the strictest and firmest possible measures. But, alas, this was not done.

These serial blasts have to be seen in the background of the failures suffered by our missile and satellite launch programmes recently, and are basically a result of a conspiracy by Pakistan. Pakistan is trying to demonstrate how badly it can hurt us by causing losses to us.

The first requirement to fight terror is to ensure that there is no political interference and the security agencies are free to take decisions based on their objective evaluations and assessments.. In the war against terror, you not only have to rely on the information provided by intelligence agencies, but also be ready to take firm and forceful measures when necessary.

I am not ready to give a certificate to any political party that it has the firm conviction and political will to fight terror. Yes, a few political figures do have this conviction, but unfortunately they do not have any power. You cannot prevail over terrorism by merely using strong language in Parliament or in the media. For that you need the political will to take hard decisions for firm action at a large scale.

I have till today not been able to understand why all political ‘leaders’ think it is ordained in their religion to reach the terror-spot soon after the incident. I am sorry to say, the local administration and the common people’s sufferings are not alleviated but are exacerbated because of such visits. Also, when the security forces and army fighting terror are blamed even for small and petty lapses, it demoralises them, as has happened recently in Kashmir.

There is a general perception that I had been given full freedom to eliminate terrorism from Punjab. I ask: who had given me the freedom? Nobody had. I had simply taken the position that if I was prevented by politicians from doing my duty, I would up and leave everything.

What’s been happening so far is that every three months or so, the central government holds a meeting with the state governments and reaches a consensus that all’s well in the country. The trouble is that no one is interested in, or wants to know, the reality. It is perhaps difficult to find even one politician in the country who holds the national interest above the interest of his or her party.

What happened soon after the elimination of terrorism in Punjab? Thousands of policemen were placed in the dock under false charges, and the result of that was demoralisation across the security agencies. What we are facing today is a direct result of that.

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