Author:
Publication: The Daily Excelsior
Date: June 28, 2001
The drive to "de-weaponise" religious
and fundamentalist groups in Pakistan has been dismissed by a section of
local media as a "Sham" with the Pervez Musharraf regime publicising minor
efforts to recover weapons to pacify international community while desisting
from carrying out these drives against known militant outfits.
The military regime, which declared
in last week of May an amnesty
to encourage surrender of weapons
from militant or fundamentalist groups, has so far failed to get a good
response from these outfits and the recovery has been low, media reports
said.
"As it is, critics do not think
the Government has even done its homework ..... If they can even achieve
40 per cent success, that would be amazing," wrote a columnist in `The
Friday Times'.
Quoting an Interior Ministry spokesman,
'Business Recorder' said "after six days of amnesty period to surrender
illicit arms voluntarily, the general public has deposited 3,988 weapons
and 15,234 rounds of ammunition."
Among these, the highest number
of deposited weapons came from north west frontier province, followed by
Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Islamabad, the report said. There were no
recoveries recorded from Pak-occupied Kashmir.
'The Friday Times' columnist, Salman
Hussein, said the "scepticism (about the de-weaponisation drive of the
Pakistani military regime) is justified."
"If the Government indeed has some
data on arms, has identified the groups in possession of such weapons,
knows the seminaries where arms are stored, then what is stopping it from
moving in," Hussein asked.
"Why should it simply give warnings
and keep extending the amnesty deadline. That would only make it that much
more difficult for it to do what it wants to do. It is logical that such
groups would hide their weapons or take other measures against the drive."
Such an operation was earlier carried
out in Sindh in 1992, but it got bogged down in political issues and "tussle"
between the ISI and the military intelligence, Hussein said.
The columnist also gave a list of
major militant outfits which were known for their weapon strength but not
touched by the Musharraf regime in its "de-weaponisation" drive. These
included Jaishe-e-Muhammad, Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hizbul
Mujahedeen, Sipah-e-Saheba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Sipah-e-Mohammad, Tehreek-e-Jafaria
and Sunni Tehreek.
A report in 'Dawn' said the military
regime launched the drive following a "warning" by the US, especially during
the recent visit to Islamabad of the CIA chief, George Tenet, to keep the
international community in "good humour".
Another report in 'Friday Times'
said "barely 48 hours before the deweaponisation campaign was to kick off,
the Government released two leaders and nearly 10 activists of militant
Brelvi Sunni Tehreek. They were arrested for possession of weapons and
disturbing peace and cases of high treason were registered against them".
(PTI)
