TWO words best describe the reaction of the law-enforcement personnel who were supposed to guard the Dera Ismail Khan jail when TTP militants stormed it last July: abject surrender.

This is the gist of a new report looking into the incident issued by an inquiry committee formed by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa administration.

This is the second report investigating the D.I. Khan disaster; while the earlier probe was a much more detailed analysis of what went wrong, the new report, finalised recently, has a more specific focus on the role of police and jail staff.

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It certainly minces no words about the lack of resistance put up by the law enforcers. To recall, a band of militant raiders stormed the facility in a well-organised foray and succeeded in freeing over 250 prisoners, including a number of dangerous terrorists.

The D.I. Khan affair followed the 2012 Bannu jailbreak, in which militants were able to free over 400 inmates. The report says that the D.I. Khan jailbreak was not due to intelligence failure — an intelligence agency had apparently issued an alert — but because police and jail staff did not put up a fight.

A particularly troubling finding of the inquiry committee is that many amongst the jail staff were sympathetic to the raiders and apparently facilitated the jailbreak.

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What is absolutely shocking is the finding that over 50 jail staffers with “doubtful credentials and dubious characters” were transferred from Bannu and posted at D.I. Khan jail. It is incomprehensible how individuals with suspect backgrounds were posted at a facility that contained dangerous militants.

It also points to a grave and growing problem we have highlighted in these columns — that of the presence of individuals with sympathies for extremist causes within the security forces and law-enforcement agencies.

The report has summed up the performance of the police in a frank, damning fashion. However, it offers no new recommendations about what action to take — apart from calling for the dismissal of some police officers as well as penalties for others who were seen as most responsible for the debacle.

It also fails to follow up on the recommendations made by the earlier inquiry report. It is not clear if the KP administration has taken any action against the errant officers.

Simply issuing a hard-hitting report and not taking subsequent corrective action can do little to improve a dangerous situation.

Without doubt the D.I. Khan and Bannu jailbreaks are just two of many major security lapses this country has seen.

Like so many incidents before and after them, they have exposed the weaknesses in the national defence and law-enforcement structure, at the same time highlighting the remarkable organisational capabilities of the militants.

Unless the state learns from its mistakes, adapts its law-enforcement and counterterrorism strategy to the needs of the time, and holds those responsible for lapses to account, it will be extremely difficult to prevent further terrorist atrocities.

Published in Dawn, September 11th , 2014