Pakistan: PTI or Devil’s Advocate

 Although, some of the political parties appear to be sympathizers of Taliban and its offshoot Teherik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) but of lately Pakistan Therik-e-Insaf (PTI) has emerged as the Devil’s advocate. This is not an allegation but an inference drawn from the latest statement of Imran Khan, Chairman PTI given at Peshawar while talking to media. 

As reported in media Imran Khan urged the government to declare ceasefire if it was serious about holding peace talks with militants in Pakistan. PTI chief also called on the government to allow militants to open up office in Pakistan, similar to the Afghan Taliban office in Qatar to facilitate the dialogue process.

Khan said that on one hand, there were talks of holding negotiations but on the other hand war was still ongoing. He asked how it would be possible to hold peace talks without the ceasefire. He also said that after the fourth All Parties Conference (APC), it was decided to hold peace talks; however no initiative has been taken as yet.

While talking about Peshawar church bombing which killed 81 people, Khan alleged that the tragedy had been politicized. He said 170 blasts had taken place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the past nine years under previous governments, but PTI had not politicized those tragedies.

To put the record straight it is necessary to bring it to the notice of PTI Chairman that during the election campaign while ANP, MQM and PPP meetings were attacked by TTP for supporting the war on terror, the banned outfit spared PML-N and PTI.

Now these two political parties are vehemently pleading negotiation with the terrorist outfits. Strangely, the government is being asked to stop operation against the perpetrators who take pride in claiming responsibility of killing of innocent people, soldiers and officers of Pakistan Army and other law enforcing agencies, sabotaging and destroying sensitive installations.

One completely fails to understand logic behind Imran’s demand of allowing the terrorists to open office in Pakistan. It seems completely insane because TTP is a banned outfit; it had killed thousands of innocent citizens, personnel of security forces and also caused enormous damage to sensitive installation, including Mehran Naval Base in Karachi, where aircrafts responsible for the surveillance of coastal line were destroyed.

The prerequisite for negotiations with any group at war with the government is that it lays down weapons and stop killing innocent people and attacking personnel of law enforcing agencies.  It seems PML-N and PTI are begging the terrorist to come to negotiation table rather than telling them categorically that ‘talks can’t be held unless these banned outfits lay down arms’. These two political parties are constantly ignoring messages coming from TTP, which claims to be at war with Pakistan Army.

Keeping in view the recent happenings in Syria one is often forced to draw the conclusion that the militants at war with Pakistan Army are being funded, supplied the most lethal weapons and also given training to use these are supported by ‘Enemies of Pakistan’. The sole purpose of these perpetrators is to weaken Pakistan economically and plunge the country into anarchy.

The perpetrators are killing people in the name of Islam but are not attacking occupying forces in Afghanistan. In fact they have become accomplice of CIA by creating a justification for prolonging stay of Nato troops in Afghanistan.

By weakening Pakistan they are also facilitating India in the creation of its hegemony in the region. The United States in the biggest proponent of granting India status of ‘Regional Super Power’. This objective can’t be achieved without causing serious dent to Pakistan.