QUETTA TERRORISM

ALI SUKHANVER

The recent terrorist attack in Quetta Hospital took lives of more than hundred innocent citizens and left so many seriously injured. The terrorists might be taking this attack as a successful episode but in the long run this brutality is going to get the people of Balochistan more united against every type of terrorism. The political leadership of Balochistan has openly said that this was an activity supervised and directed by the R&AW and the security forces have started a combing operation against the terrorists and their facilitators. Things would be soon in lime-light and the characters involved in this brutality shall be soon in grip of law but the actual thing is to search for the reasons behind such activities. Most of the analysts are of the opinion that since the beginning of 2016 or in other words, after seeing the CPEC project proceeding rapidly to its completion, the hostile intelligence agencies have become more active in Pakistan regarding terrorist activities. During the last seven months, the law-enforcement agencies of Pakistan arrested many agents of hostile intelligence agencies including an Indian spy Kul Bashan Yadav in Balochistan. He was arrested on 3^rd March 2016. In May 2016, Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti disclosed in a news conference at the Sikandar Jamali Auditorium in the Civil Secretariat Quetta, the arrest of as many as six Afghan ‘agents’ who were allegedly involved in acts of sabotage, terrorism and targeted killings that left at least 40 people dead in the country. Mir Sarfaraz Bugti pointed out that RAW and the Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) were jointly involved in perpetrating acts of terror in the Balochistan province. He said, “RAW and NDS jointly infiltrate their agents into Pakistan and these men carry out targeted killings.” Mr. Bugti’s claim shocked everyone that three officers of the Afghan intelligence agency of General ranks were personally supervising these terrorists and target killers during sabotage and subversion operations in Pakistan specifically aimed at destabilizing the country. The officers were identified as General Rahim, General Malik and General Momin, said Bugti. On 7^th May 2016, Karachi Police and law enforcement agencies during a search operation near Jamshed Quarter area arrested an Indian agent belonging to the Indian Research and Analysis Wing. The Indian spy was identified as Arshad. According to the sources, this man came to Pakistan in 2011 and visited foreign countries approximately six times during this period. Police recovered three mobile phones, 10 SIM cards, an internet device, a laptop and classified documents from his possession. Investigators told media that Arshad had close contacts in India, whom he used to contact over the internet.

Recently on 6^th August 2016, the Federal Investigation Agency of Pakistan arrested a blacklisted American national Mathew Barrett upon his arrival at Benazir Bhutto International Airport, Rawalpindi. Mathew was blacklisted by Pakistani authorities and deported from the country in 2011 on grounds of alleged spying of the nuclear installations. Mathew Barrett, according to a local TV channel, was then captured from a sensitive location in Fateh Jang tehsil of Punjab’s Attock district. According to the details, the investigation authorities are trying to excavate how a banned and deported American spy succeeded in getting visa for Pakistan. FIA has also arrested the duty officer Ehtisham, who allegedly facilitated Mathew Barrett in this illegal process of entering into Pakistan. It is being hoped that the government of Pakistan is going to show no softness in this case as it is a very serious matter particularly at the time when Pakistan is facing a lot of security threats.  In short from March 2016 to August 2016, in the period of about six months, the intelligence and security agencies of Pakistan succeeded in arresting more than ten agents of hostile intelligence agencies who could have created a lot of trouble and disturbance for the people of Pakistan if Pakistani law-enforcement agencies had not traced and arrested them. The responsibility of the intelligence and security agencies of Pakistan was to trace and arrest these culprits; now ball is in the court of the law-authorities who would certainly show these criminals the direct path to their destination. People are very much confident that on the basis of his American nationality, Mathew Barrett would not receive the same protocol and privilege which Raymond Davis had enjoyed in March 2011. One of the most grievous problems of Pakistan is that unfortunately here criminals have hundred ways of getting acquitted and this acquittal becomes easier if the criminal is a foreigner particularly an American but now this ‘courtesy culture’ is going to die soon in Pakistan.