AS reported in the media, the wife of Qari Shahid, Karachi ameer of the so-called Punjabi Taliban, has made some very disturbing revelations. The qari, a former activist of a student party and journalist-turned-militant, was killed in a recent shootout with the police in the metropolis while his widow remains in custody. As per the woman's reported confession, the couple actively helped plan, facilitate and carry out major acts of terrorism in the city. The couple, along with their infant son, had toured the PAF museum — located next to the PNS Mehran base — before the naval facility was stormed by militants in May in an apparent reconnaissance mission. The woman also claimed to have personally passed on a bomb militants planted at the University of Karachi, which injured students offering prayers on campus. Among her other claimed exploits, she cooked for militants who wanted to target Abdullah Shah Ghazi's shrine but were killed in a police encounter in the Seaview locality last month, and planted one of the two bombs that exploded at the shrine in October last year killing several devotees of the saint.

These revelations show the extent to which religious militants have infiltrated society. Even if half of her statements are true it is cause for grave concern. These claims show that militants have blended into the city's fabric with considerable ease and plan their activities under a comfortable cloak of anonymity. It is this unsettling reality the intelligence apparatus must wake up to. There is indeed a fine line between running a police state and gathering solid intelligence to prevent acts of terrorism. The security apparatus needs to demarcate this line and keep its eyes and ears open to neutralise the various terrorist cells that appear to be active in the city and that are in all probability planning to wreak further havoc.