Aditya Aamir
Pakistan’s Foreign Office labelled Kulbhushan Jadhav as “India’s face of terror’ and said he was the vilest killer let loose on Pakistan soil by India’s spy agency the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), so vile that even his 70-year-old mother and wife are fair game to be heckled, humiliated and intimidated.
Pakistan has told the world that Jadhav was behind “hundreds” of killings of Pakistanis. But has his arrest and incarceration brought down terror killings in Pakistan? The answer is a resounding ‘No’. In 2017 alone 484 civilians and 145 security forces were killed in terror attacks.
Proof that Jadhav was not a terrorist on a killing spree in Pakistan. He was the victim of a Pakistani grand-game to foist on India its own terror-state image, a plan put into operation around the time Jadhav was “caught red-handed”.
So far, Pakistan has not produced a shred of evidence to prove its case against Jadhav. Its so-called “free media” has not questioned why terror strikes have not stopped after Jadhav’s arrest. Curiousity is a casualty in newsrooms across Pakistan.
The much vaunted Dawn newspaper on Saturday put out a report on “major terror attacks in 2017” and concluded that an “overview” painted a “grim picture of the state of security in the country.”
Despite two major military operations — country-wide Raddul Fasaad and Khyber 4, which focused primarily on Rajgal Valley —at least 484 civilians and 145 security forces’ personnel were killed in various incidents of terror across the country, news portal http://www.satp.org reported.
The Dawn report criticised the state’s “knee-jerk response” to terror. “For instance, in the case of the terror attack targeting Peshawar’s Agricultural Training Institute,” a senior superintendent police told DawnNews, “that although police were told the hostel was among the more vulnerable areas in the city, it had not been adequately secured.”
What is more, even after security is almost always “bumped up” at the sites of the attack, they continue to be targeted. For instance Parachinar, a town in Kurram Agency, has seen repeated terror attacks over the last decade.
The majority of the attacks targeted security forces. Jamaatul Ahrar – a splinter of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan – which claimed responsibility for the 2014 Wagah Border suicide attack, declared “open season” on security forces in 2017, threatening a nationwide campaign targeting civil and armed forces, judiciary, media and political parties.
Attacks orchestrated by Islamic State (IS) saw the highest number of casualties. IS-claimed attacks killed 160 people. Jamaatul Ahrar-claimed attacks killed 104. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami claimed two attacks this year — both in Parachinar — and killed 92.
The TTP claimed the greatest number of attacks. But their combined death toll came only to 79. TTP attacked mostly security forces and law enforcement personnel.
Two attacks were claimed by two groups each — Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami (LeJ-A) and TTP jointly claimed responsibility for an attack on Parachinar’s Sabzi Mandi; Jamaatul Ahrar and IS both claimed responsibility for an attack near the Balochistan police chief’s office in Quetta.
The largest number of victims of terrorism were killed in attacks on places of worship.
Director General Inter-Services Public Relations Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, who spoke of a “greater focus on Balochistan”, confessed that the military was unable to secure the province with the speed and efficacy required.
This much is evident from the number of attacks targeting police officials in Balochistan. “When we started action in Fata, the troublemakers turned to Balochistan,” he said. “What we do today, you’ll be seeing the results of in subsequent years.”
Proof that Kulbhsushan Jadhav, whose base of operations was said to be Balochistan, was the victim of a Pakistan game-plan to paint India as a terror state and he “India’s face of terror of India.”
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