BACK to back, double salubrious news brought a great joy for the nation. One comes from abroad and the other is from inland.

The Pakistan cricket team defeated the England team on its own soil, with a comprehensive win of 70 runs. Simultaneously, our security agencies busted terrorists’ network at Tank and recovered Awais Ali Shah, son of the chief justice of the Sindh High Court.

Both these triumphs are of great significance in more than one way. Our cricket team has been the underdog for some time, especially after its dismal performance in this year’s World T20 Championship.

Then the spot-fixing issue was looming large, the ground of Lords being the birthplace of this conundrum. In the same way, the kidnap of Awais Ali Shah, on July 20 had put a question mark on the efficiency and credibility of our law-enforcers.

Awais Shah’s recovery and that too within a month proves that our intelligence agencies have the ability and panache to vanquish the evil of terrorism in any form and at any time.

According to ISPR chief Gen Asim Bajwa, the recovery operation was led by the ISI.

Earlier this year, the recoveries of kidnapped Shehbaz Taseer and Ali Raza Gilani were great achievements on the part of our security watchdogs. Both these victories are an outcome of team-work, cooperation, coordination and professionalism.

The message is that we must not fall prey to complacency. Instead, we should continue with sustained vigour and alacrity to overpower our multi-pronged problems.

Muhammad Fayyaz

Mianwali

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2016