As expected, it has taken only less than a week to unravel the jihadi magic played by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Going by the reaction to his January 12 speech, the whole world seems to be in a mood to give the General a standing ovation for his "bold and visionary" approach to tackle terrorism. Here I would advise a pause.
On the ground, the situation is not exactly what the General wants the world to believe. First, he has conveniently clubbed every scoundrel under the Pakistani sky as a jihadi making it easier for him to camouflage the fraud being perpetrated in the guise of war against terrorism. Since Saturday, more than 1900 persons have been rounded up in the crackdown that is being trumpeted as a mark of the General's intentions. This is where the fraud is. A majority of them are merely small-time activists of religious organisations like Sipah-e-Saheba, Tehrik-e-Jafria Pakistan and Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-I-Mohammad. I will quote from a statement made by the Secretary, Home and Tribal Affairs, North West Frontier Province, Javed Iqbal: We have gone after activists who had a known history of trouble-making, disruption, disobedience and road blocks". Outfits like Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad are not exactly the ones who could be called mere trouble makers or protesters. Or is it General Musharraf's latest definition of terrorism? Six months ago, in Agra, he had redefined terrorists as freedom fighters. Lashkar and Jaish are known terrorist organisations, banned by the United States and even by the General recently.
There is another reason for these fraudulent arrests. The General's Army is rounding up those who are potential trouble-makers for the General himself. For instance, a large number of those arrested belong to Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-I-Mohammad (TSNM), a sectarian outfit that has been causing trouble for Musharraf for some time. It was the TSNM, which, in 1994, had led a bloody revolt against the establishment calling for enforcing the law of Shariat on the country. During the US bombing of Afghanistan, it was TSNM chief Maulana Sufi Mohammad who led several thousand Pakistanis to fight alongside the Taliban against the United States.
The Maulana's action was in clear defiance of Musharraf's orders. Even then the General could only dare to arrest the Maulana under a tame law, the Frontier Crimes Regulation and not under the stringent the Anti-Terrorist Act he had promulgated last year. In fact, none of the jihadis arrested have been booked under the anti-terrorist law but charged, instead, under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance (MPOO).
In simpler terms, it means that terrorists have been charged with violating prohibitory orders. Under this law, these terrorists could only be locked up for one to three months and have to be released if no fresh charges were pressed. This is very convenient for the General who can claim to have come down heavily on terrorists, get a breather from the US and other western powers and then release them citing legal infirmities. Interestingly, Pakistani media quoting police officials is already reporting release of many of the detenus after the initial euphoria. There is another point that needs to be highlighted. Barring a few top leaders of these terrorist organisations, the security agencies could not lay their hands on rest of the hierarchy. In fact, most of them had fled even before President Musharraf told the world about his crackdown. The leaders had locked up their offices, closed bank accounts and moved out to safer pastures, all under the supervision of the ISI and other agencies.
There is still one way to corner
the wily General. Force him to book these activists under the amended Anti-Terrorism
Act of 1997. This could mean two things. First, the terrorists would remain
locked up till the trial got over. Second, India would have a stronger
case for extraditing terror leaders like Maulana Masood Azhar.