As I write this on Independence Day, I realize that it is exactly 54 years ago that our family crossed over from New Delhi to Karachi by train.

I was three years old, and my only recollection of the momentous events of 1947 is a fuzzy memory of a chowkidar trying out different keys to unlock a door late at night. When I was older, I was told that our train had been attacked by Sikhs, and only the presence of a platoon of Pakistani soldiers had saved us from being hacked to death - a fate that was common enough among refugees crossing the border in both directions.

In those early years of Pakistan, my father told us of him and his colleagues in the government using scraps of paper for office noting and thorns from trees as pins. There was a fervour and a patriotism that we lost somewhere along the way. My 30-year experience in the civil service was characterized more by cynicism than by any idealism: most people I have worked with were concerned more about their pay and perks and what they could get away with rather than any sense of what they could do to improve things and serve the people.

But as one reflects on the decline of standards in virtually every field, the shrinkage in the writ of the state becomes most striking. Whereas district officers and SHOs in British India controlled the law and order situation effectively and ruthlessly, successively weaker leaders in Pakistan (and India, too, one suspects) allowed criminals to flourish as the police were used to batter political opponents rather than pursue crooks and stamp out crime.

Now, despite all the resources at their disposal, the police simply cannot take on the might of Jihad Inc. Our heavily armed fanatics outgun our cops, and in any case enjoy a quasi-immunity because of the nexus they have formed with mainstream political parties, and now with the army as they serve the agenda of successive governments in Kashmir and Afghanistan.

When the army staged its latest coup nearly two years ago, I had suggested that it should focus its energy and organizational resources on a very short agenda with its first priority being the eradication of the bands of armed religious fanatics of every stripe that had proliferated across the country. Alas, General Musharraf became too involved in other, less important, matters and our jihadis continued to commit mayhem at will. It has taken a particularly vicious string of killings over the last few weeks to nudge the government into initiating action against them.

Banning two of the many militant parties and putting another two on notice is the very least that could have been done under the circumstances. The problem with a ban is that the members of these bands can either float new parties under different names or join the many other armed groups that continue flourishing. What needs to be done is to make it a crime to preach hatred against another religious community or sect. Next, activists who have been involved in violence need to be locked up. Over the years, our many intelligence agencies have built up a considerable data bank concerning these zealots. If they haven't, they should be disbanded for inefficiency. The current crackdown needs to be ruthlessly implemented: far too often, militants are picked up only to be released after a few days.

The sputtering campaign against illegal arms has yielded predictably meagre results, reflecting poorly on a military government: most people simply don't think it means business. Some religious groups have defended their right to bear arms. Here again, our many under-cover operatives should have a pretty good idea about the arsenals that have been built up over the years, or they have been wasting the taxpayer's money.

The whole problem boils down to one of political will, and so far, this government has not shown that it has enough of it to effectively tackle this difficult issue. In mid-nineties when the MQM was on a rampage in Karachi, Benazir Bhutto and her interior minister, General Babar, demonstrated that the state is not entirely helpless in the face of armed and dangerous groups. Despite the excesses committed by that government against many innocent citizens, the fact is that the pain inflicted on the armed faction of the ethnic group served as a highly effective deterrent.

It is this kind of commitment that is lacking in the present campaign. One problem is that the MQM had no constituency in or out of the government or the army to shield it from the might of the state. It had completely alienated every major political party and ethnic grouping. Jihad Inc, on the other hand, has some important backers. Our army itself is not free of their influence, and elements are engaged in furthering their hawkish agendas in Kashmir and Afghanistan. Also, most of them hail from Punjab as do our soldiers and bureaucrats. Thus, it is difficult to see how the state can or will use the full force of its apparatus against these dangerous elements. Again, having taken a first step against these organizations, the regime must not falter in its campaign.

With these elements wantonly spilling blood at will, it is hard to imagine foreign or Pakistani investors putting their funds into a country where their lives are constantly at risk just because of their faith. Everybody in this government from the president and his finance minister downwards has been almost begging investors to invest, offering them all kinds of incentives and guarantees. But can they guarantee them physical security?

And until there is new investment, no new jobs will be generated to absorb the million-plus young men entering the job market every year. Without jobs, many of them will (and do) turn to drugs and crime; and some of them are recruited by Jihad Inc.

As I have said in these columns before, this task can only be undertaken by the army as the police have neither the resources nor the training and motivation to take on the hydra-headed monster created by Zia to serve as his constituency. For years after him, successive leaders and governments have been content with issuing statements and making the odd arrest, only to release these activists under pressure.

The police have been too demoralized to even attempt to do their duty against these elements, especially as they have seen them sprung from prison by their political masters time and again.

The time has come for General Musharraf to stand firm and take this rampaging bull by the horns. He has made a beginning of sorts, but he must see this campaign to the end.