A suspected suicide attack at CTD Police Station in Kabal, Swat has resulted in the martyrdom of 12 policemen and 57 people including policemen and civilians sustained serious injuries. According to the details, two consecutive blasts totally collapsed an old building comprising offices and an ammunition store inside the police station complex on Monday evening. The senior Police official told the media that the cause of the blasts could not be identified so far as the stored ammunition might cause a blast due to negligence, whereas the possibility of a suicide attack could also not be ruled out at this point in time.
A fierce battle between the outlawed terror outfits and KP Security Forces is continuing over the past few months after the banned TTP called off its ceasefire in November last year. The security forces are haunting down the terrorist groups in Erstwhile FATA and settled districts adjacent to the Pak-Afghan border. The banned outfits are on the run and trying to regain their foothold by continuous attacks agaisnt the LEAs and Police. The reports suggest that one hundred and twenty-five police personnel embraced martyrdom and 212 others sustained injuries in about 25 militant attacks across the province during the first quarter of 2023. The nationwide death tally stood at 358 while injuries reached over 496 people when it comes to terrorist activities in Balochistan, Sindh, and other parts of the country. The Police Officials claimed that the force was carrying out intelligence-based operations against the militants and the scourage of terrorism would be eliminated from the province very soon,
The statistics regarding the terror incidents, casualties, injuries, and financial/property losses of the LEAs portray a grim law and order situation in various parts of the country. Despite multiple successes including the busting of terror cells, killing, and arrests of senior terrorist commanders, the performance of Police and LEAs was not upto the par as this frontline force failed to protect itself from terrorist attacks and causalities of Police during the previous quarter was one of the highest in the past decades. There had been major attacks on Police facilities including CTD Complex DI Khan, Peshawar Police Lines, Mianwali, and Luki Marwat, while the Swat CTD incident was one of the major setbacks and failures for the Police department over the past few months. Ironically, despite successive massacres and the revealation of serious security lapses in the Police system and other LEAs, no accountability of wrongdoers, no improvement, and institutional reforms/ training in the Police system had been made so far. Hence, the Country’s political leaders, senior commanders of the LEAs, and the public used to mourn over every new occurrence and promise to take revenge and forget the issue until another catastrophe tragedy happens.
Unfortunately, neither the Pakistani political leadership nor military strategists and intelligentsia could access the full extent and gravity of the problem of terrorism and extremism that has taken deep routes in our society. A huge chunk of the population in various parts of the country had been radicalized due to policies of the past governments. Historically, Pakistani rulers had used religion for political purposes and state-sponsored jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir not only radicalized the society but encouraged the religious clerics and Military Generals to preach jihad and lead armed groups to realize their nefarious political goals. It is high time that the political leadership feels its responsibility and adopts a consensus nationwide strategy to address the grave consequences of its previous policies, regulate all educational and religious activities, enforce strict laws, ban hate speech, and promote tolerance, and brotherhood in the society. All successive governments put off this essential task to their successors while the catastrophe multiplied over the years and reached an almost irreversible peak. Therefore, the incumbent government must initiate full-fledged counter-terrorism and counter-extremism campaigns across the country so these perils could be eliminated from our soil once and for all.
