A misguided approach from PTI

Hakimullah Mehsud who remained a symbol of tyranny and cruelty throughout his life, is still haunting Pakistan after his death. Though, in his last days he gave few signs of making peace with the states on his own ‘unknown’ terms.

But as he got droned by the US, the right wing parties who always had their reservations on the use of force against the TTP, came out of the shell and termed Hakimullah’s killing as a great loss to peace-process.

The peace process with those forces who don’t accept they system and constitution of our country but some forces are openly supporting TTP  and asking federal government to take stern actions against drones. Some right wing parties like JI, PTI and JUI who have never condemned the brutality and barbarism of Taliban, raised so much hue and cry on the killing of TTP militants that even the new TTP chief couldn’t hold himself back from thanking Imran Khan, Munawer Hassan and Maulana Fazlur Rehman for their strong stance against drone attacks.

PTI and JI who are ruling KPK, and JUI which is the leading opposition party in KPK, all seem to be on one page when it comes to blocking NATO supply routes from KPK in order to build pressure on the US to stop drone attacks.

But we don’t see any demand of actions against TTP will who slaughtered armed personals and  killed innocent Pakistanis from Khyber to Karachi, and shamelessly accepted the responsibility of all the actions. Recently they claimed the responsibility of Ancholi twin blasts which claimed 8 precious lives, just before a day when PTI, JI and JUI were holding a sit in to block NATO supplies.

This is a crucial time when Pakistan’s sovereignty is on the stake from both the external and the internal front and we can’t afford any sort of adventurism. all the liberal parties mainly (MQM); which has always kept a firm stand against increasing religious extremism as well as drone strikes ;has come up with a reasonable idea.

MQM Chief Altaf Hussain in his most recent statement urged all the parties protesting against drone strikes to hold sit-ins until government issues the directives to shoot down drone, which is a reasonable demand because if they are sincere with the cause then they should remain committed to it, until some sort of result comes out of it.

If we will revisit the past we’ll see that despite condemnation, protests and sit-ins, the drone strikes are continuously carried out in Pakistan’s tribal areas and the time has come to take practical steps against these attacks.

In spite of political differences with parties holding sit-ins against drone strikes, Altaf Hussain said in national interest that if those political parties who are holding sit-ins against drone strikes also announce jihad against Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Al-Qaeda and other banned outfits who have killed 40,000 innocent Pakistanis and have blood of Pakistani soldiers on their hands, his party MQM would also participate in their protest.

Altaf Hussain has also asked Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) to stage protests outside the Prime Minister House, the Presidency, the GHQ and the embassies of US, Britain and other NATO countries, until the federal government orders Pakistan Air Force to shoot down the unmanned aircraft.

Some analysts may disagree with MQM chief ‘s last suggestion but to me this suggestion seems to be the one solution for all problems because once there will be no drone strikes in Pakistan, no political party would be able to misguide the nation on TTP issues.

It will give an impetus to the nation as well, and the nation will be able to differentiate between who is loyal to the country and who is loyal to the enemies of Pakistan like Al-Qaeda and TTP etc.

Putting an end to the drone strikes will also automatically eradicate the widespread excuse that TTP kills innocent Pakistanis in order to avenge for their members who got killed in drone attacks. Then government of Pakistan will be able to take stern action against those groups who are challenging the writ of government without any pressure TTP apologists.Till today are misleading the nation by justifying TTP’s horrific killings as reaction of drone attacks.