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EVER since the Army Public School tragedy in Peshawar in December, we have seen hyperactivity at the level of the federal government and a spate of aggressive statements by the prime minister himself. And yet, so far there has been little action on the ground.
This is because our law-enforcement capability lies mainly with the provincial government. The federal ministry of interior controls only the Islamabad Capital Territory police. The main police power of the provinces, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan (about half the strength of the army) was never raised, trained or motivated to fight terrorism.
Faced with a flood of terrorist attacks, the former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani formed the National Counter Terrorism Authority in December 2009. The then indomitable interior minister Rehman Malik said it would operate as a think tank, do research and come up with measures for a national counterterrorism action plan. But for five years Nacta did nothing. Following the Peshawar tragedy, we finally got the National Action Plan prepared by a hurriedly called meeting of an assortment of experts, of which this writer was one, and not by Nacta.
A ‘big achievement’ of getting Nacta off the ground recently was to post a Pakistan Administrative Service officer in November to head it. (The officer is due to retire in a few months.)
But despite all this hype about the counterterrorism authority, which was supposed to do everything according to the National Internal Security Policy announced last year, the Nacta experiment I am afraid is not going anywhere, for the following reasons:
Unfortunately, the Nacta experiment is going nowhere.
Firstly, clarity of command of the organisation is missing. While experts say it should report to the prime minister, and reportedly there was agreement on this, it apparently continues to work through the interior minister. With an assertive interior minister, who the prime minister prefers not to annoy, the dichotomy of command is likely to continue, to the detriment of the organisation.
Secondly, Nacta is designed as a think tank and a coordinator of intelligence information and not for physical action. Since Nacta has no command role, actual action on policy recommendation and intelligence leads depends on the passion and priority of each chief minister and inspector general of police of the province. In the US, the FBI takes control of a crime listed as a federal one and terrorism is surely on the list. In the event of a terrorism-related incident in US, FBI takes over and the state police assist.
FBI’s organisational memory, as seen from their website, indicates that the first amongst their top 10 most wanted terrorists is a Filipino belonging to an Islamic party who killed an American in the Philippines in 2005. In Pakistan we only track the last incident.
Thirdly, finding an effective coordinator for Nacta is no mean task. It is a dangerous assignment if done effectively and civil officers, especially those not with the police, have no tradition of significant protective cover. Further with a minister in between him and the prime minister, he is unlikely to be given full command. In the recent flurry of activity by the prime minister and his team, the Nacta coordinator was not very visible.
The Nacta chief is a coordinator while we need a commander, if the civilian authority is not to concede all counterterrorism work to the army.
When India had their Lal Masjid in the form of the famous Blue Star Operation launched by Indira Gandhi on the Golden Temple, which provided impetus to the Khalistan independence movement, India reacted by appointing an IG with steel nerves, K.P.S. Gill in Punjab, and gave him all the powers, legal and extrajudicial, and met all his financial needs. The politicians stood behind him.
He commanded the Indian Punjab police so effectively that the movement, a popular indigenous one, was obliterated. If we want the civilian law enforcement to take on terrorists in every village and mohalla where they have now penetrated, we need a K.P.S.Gill to command a Nacta, designed more on the lines of FBI rather than a think tank.
My worst fear is that capacity at the district level, to implement the wish list of the National Action Plan, does not exist. While the emphasis of the district administration in the last decade has been on physical development, law enforcement capability has diminished.
Therefore we need to think out of the box and have a counterterrorism coordinator in every district, whether it is in the form of a district magistrate or a super police officer with magisterial powers, but one who knows the area, enjoys the confidence of the populace and has the wherewithal to convert all the recommendations of the 16 sub committees to implement the 20-point National Action Plan.
The writer is a former federal secretary interior.
Published in Dawn February 1st, 2015
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