New anti-terror steps

The National Security Council meeting on Thursday reportedly decided to take some new measures to deal with terrorism. Even though no information was given on what precisely those "new" measures would be, the announcement serves to underline not only the government's determination to pursue the war on terror but the gravity of the situation created by it.

The very day that the NSC meeting was held, an Al Qaeda suspect was killed and two of his accomplices held in an encounter in Lahore. The militants, who were well armed, put up resistance, and threw grenades at the police.

What is amazing is that the clash did not take place in some remote part of the country; the shootout occurred in Lahore. The quantity and variety of ammunition and bomb-making material seized are staggering.

These include rifles, hand-grenades, hundreds of bullets, fuses and batteries, besides CDs and religious literature. This goes to show that the Al Qaeda network might have been crippled but it is still in a position to operate even in the heart of Pakistan. And its supply system somehow continues to feed and arm its operatives. The same day in Peshawar, the security agencies presented three militants before the press. Ignoring for the moment the advisability of parading suspects before the media, their arrest, like the clash in Lahore, shows the tentacles of terrorist networks in Pakistan.

Those caught in Peshawar include Hussain, a 12-year boy. Whether the ethnic Tajik from Afghanistan is a madressah product is unclear, but his presence among militants shows how innocent youths are brainwashed into becoming activists of militant groups.

As the Peshawar corps commander put it, youths as young as Hussain "cannot even wipe their noses" but they are used by terrorist groups for their evil purposes. These suspects had received training in Tajikistan also.

This only makes the anti-terrorism job even more difficult and emphazises the need for cooperation with Central Asian states to unearth and destroy terrorist training centres there.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said the madressah issue was not discussed by the NSC meeting. One wonders why not. There are hundreds of thousands of others like the 12-year-old Hussain who are exposed to brainwashing.

Not all those who attend madressahs are among likely recruits by terrorist groups; nor are all madressahs run by militant fanatics. Most are doing their traditional job and producing imams for the community. But some madressahs do indeed have links with terrorist organizations. It is this latter category that needs to be monitored and purged of those trying to turn their institutions into training and recruiting centres for religious militants.

Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Frontier Chief Minister Akram Durrani did not attend the NSC meeting. This is in keeping with the MMA's reservations about the NSC's composition and powers.

There is much sense in their demand that it is the prime minister who should preside over this body. Under the chairmanship of a president who is also the army chief, the NSC seems designed to subordinate the elected civilian leadership to the military.

This goes against the fundamental principles of democracy. The responsibility for drawing up economic and security polices is always that of the elected government, for it is the elected representatives and not people in uniform who know the electors' minds and are, thus, in a better position to respond to popular aspirations.

Reopening Khokhrapar

Thursday's statement by India's Foreign Minister Kunwar Natwar Singh hinting at restoring the Khokhrapar-Munabao rail link between Pakistan and India by October next year is encouraging.

The link was broken off during the 1965 war, and it is said that some time is required to repair the track and for setting up immigration facilities and services at the Sindh-Rajasthan border.

The timeframe now indicated by the Indians needs to be confirmed by Pakistani officials. The restoration of this vital link will largely benefit Pakistanis living in Sindh who have to face undue hardship on account of travelling first to Islamabad to get the Indian visas and then, for most of them, going to Lahore to take a train from there.

This is not only time consuming but also an expensive proposition, which many wishing to visit relatives in India can ill afford. The reopening of the Khokhrapar border was suggested back in January by the former Indian prime minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, as one of the confidence-building measures between the two countries.

Luckily, unlike the proposal pertaining to the running of a bus service between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar, the two governments do not have political differences over the logistics of reopening the Khokhrapar rail link.

Thus, the sooner the required infrastructure development and restoration work is completed on both sides of the border, the better. Islamabad and New Delhi had both committed themselves to facilitating cross-border people-to-people contacts when leaders from the two countries met in Islamabad on the sidelines of the Saarc summit in January.

In fact, this was one of the corner stones of the detente now in place. In this regard, one is also reminded of the pledge then made to reopen Indian and Pakistani consulates in Karachi and Mumbai.

Together, the two measures can go a long way in strengthening the existing bonhomie between the two peoples. One hopes that these issues will be discussed by the officials concerned in right earnest and practical steps taken to restore the severed link across the Sindh-Rajasthan border sooner than later.

Unrecognized degrees

If a recent advertisement by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) is to be believed, there are many institutions of higher education in Pakistan making wrong claims of affiliation to foreign universities or offering unaccredited and unrecognized degrees to students.

Through this advertisement, the HEC has tried to warn students and their parents of several possibilities. There are some universities and colleges which are offering either degrees that carry no HEC recognition or are falsely claiming affiliation to foreign universities.

In many latter cases, the foreign universities in question are not accredited even in their home countries. There is also another category of institutions that are operating campuses in areas or provinces not sanctioned by their charters.

For example, a university based in Sindh and which has a charter granted by that province's assembly can operate campuses outside Sindh that would be considered illegal by the HEC.

Now in reference to this issue, the education minister on Thursday told journalists that the federal cabinet had given all such institutions till February 2007 to comply with the HEC's rules and regulations or face closure.

Failure to do so would invite legal action against them and annulment of their degree-conferring charters. While the HEC measure is a step in the right direction in that it at least cautions students and their parents of the possible risks in pursuing higher education at such institutions, it leaves some important questions unanswered.

For instance, going by the education minister's statement, the cut-off date of 2007 might actually create serious problems for students enrolled in universities claiming foreign affiliations.

Do they now shift to some other HEC accredited universities or stay enrolled and take the risk of waiting till 2007? Also, what if students at such institutions graduate prior to 2007 and hope for the best? Will the degrees of all graduates prior to that period also be given recognition?