A spokesman of the Darra Adamkhel Valley (DAV) branch of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is reported to have phoned theNews of Pakistan on February 7, 2009, to claim that following the repeated refusal of thegovernment to release four detainees of the TTP, the DAV branch beheaded on February6, 2009, a Polish engineer by name Peter Stanczak, who was kidnapped from the Pind Sultani area of Jund in the Attock district of the Punjab on September 28, 2008. The spokesman also reportedly said that the beheading was also in reprisal against repeated strikes by the Predator (unmanned) aircraft of the US on suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban hide-outs in the Pakistani territory. He accused the Pakistanigovernment of tacitly co-operating with the US in these air strikes. He added that the DAV branch originally wanted to demand also the withdrawal of the Polish troops in the NATO contingent in Afghanistan, but decided not to do so. Stanczak was employed by a Polish firm which has been helping in Pakistan’s national seismic survey .
The beheading of the Polish engineer has increased concern over the fate of an Iranian and an Afghan diplomat and a Chinese engineer, who were also kidnapped in the tribal belt last year to demand ransom and the release of some Taliban members detained by the Pakistani authorities. They have not so far been released. The anger against the Chinese was initially over their suspected role in allegedly pressuring the previous Musharrafgovernment to raid the Lal Masjid in July, 2007, following the kidnapping and humiliation of some Chinese women working in in the Islamabad area by some students of the madrasas attached to the Masjid. Though the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad strongly denied that it had made Musharraf order the raid, the TTP has not been convinced of their denial. This anger has been exacerbated by the pre-Olympics arrests by the Chinese authorities in the Xinjiang province of a number of Uighurs, with some of them allegedly having links with Pakistan-based Uighur groups and madrasas. The Lal Masjid itself had some Uighurstudents--boys and girls--in its madrasas. The Chinese arrested them either as a precautionary measure before the Olympics or during their investigation into some terrorist incidents in the province.
The beheading of the Polish engineer coincided with the seventh anniversary of the murder of Daniel Pearl, a Jewish American journalist, by slitting his throat after keeping him in captivity for some days. He had gone to Karachi from Mumbai, where he was posted as the South Asia correspondent of the "Wall Street Journal ," in January,2002, to enquire into the suspected Pakistani links of Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, who unsuccessfully attempted to blow up an American plane with some explosives concealed in his shoes. Pearl fell into a trap carefully laid by a group of Karachi-based jihadis led by Omar Sheikh, a British resident of Pakistani origin, who was one of those released by India to secure the release of the passengers of an Indian Airlines plane from Kathmandu hijacked to Kandahar by some terrorists belonging to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) in December 1999. Another Pakistani detainee releasedalong with him by India was Maulana Masood Azhar, who then belonged to the HUM. After his return to Pakistan after being handed over by India to the hijackers in Kandahar, Azhar split from the HUM inJanuary, 2000, and formed the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM). Omar Sheikh also joined theJEM.
According to the Pakistani version, the kidnapping and the subsequent murder of Pearl by slitting his throat were carried out by a mixed group of terrorists belonging to the HUM (Al Alami meaning International), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the JEM and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), an anti-Shia organisation. Omar Sheikh planned and orchestrated the kidnapping. Thereafter, he surrendered to Brig.Ijaz Shah, who was then posted as the Home Secretary of thegovernment of Punjab. Before this post, he had served in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and was considered close to Pervez Musharraf. Pearl's throat was slit in the beginning ofFebruary, 2002, and his body was buried in a plot of land allegedly belonging to a charity organisation linked to the JEM. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), who allegedly co-ordinated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US on behalf of Osama bin Laden, and who is now in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, is reported to have told the US authorities that it was he who slit the throat of Pearl. The remains of the body were recovered by the Karachi Police during the investigation and identified. It was reported that the entire slitting of the throat was video recorded by the terrorists and sent to bin Laden.
A number of alleged perpetrators was arrested by the Pakistani police and prosecuted. Omar Sheikh was sentenced to death. He appealed against the sentence. The appeal has not so far been taken up for hearing by the Anti-Terrorism court, which has granted one adjournment after another to the lawyers of Omar Sheikh under some frivolous ground or the other. According to reliable police sources, since the presentgovernment headed by Yousef Raza Gilani came to power after the elections of February 18,2008, Omar Sheikh has been granted a number of facilities such as the use of mobile telephones, frequent visits by his friends and associates in Pakistan and the UK etc. For all practical purposes, he is reportedly guiding the activities of the JEM from the jail. A detailed report on his activities from jailwas carried by the News of December18, 2008.
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The JEM has been closely allied with the Swat Valley branch of the TTP and its cadres have been involved in the operations of the TTP against the Pakistani security forces. Just as the killers of Pearl disposed of his body after slitting his throat and circulated only a video-recording to prove his execution according to the so-called Islamic laws, the killers of the Polishengineer have also said that they would not return his dead body and that they would only circulate a video-recording of his beheading as proof of their claim.
Despite the strong statements made periodically by President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani about their determination to put an end to terrorism originating from Pakistani territory, their policy towards the terrorists has been even more soft than the policy followed by Musharraf. The Pakistani Police have virtually suspended their investigation into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, allegedly on the orders of Rehman Malik, the Internal Security Adviser, under the pretext that since the UN Secretary-General has agreed to order an investigation by a three-member team of international experts, there is no need for a duplicate enquiry by the Pakistani Police. Rehman Malik was acting as the co-ordinator of physical security for Benazir when she was in political exile and was responsible for her security at the time of her assassination. He is considered close to Zardari. When the Sindh National Front of Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, a cousin of the late Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto and a founder-member of the Pakistan People's Party, raised the issue of the alleged lack of interest in the investigation of her assassination, the office-bearers of the SNF were harassed by the police and got arrested on allegedly trumped-up charges.
The terrorist groups are having a free run not only in the tribal belt, but also in Punjab and there are fears of their activities once again spreading to Karachi as it had in 2002 when Pearl was kidnapped and killed, a group of French submarine engineers was blown up and there was an explosion outside the US Consulate in Karachi. The death of an American diplomat in Karachi on the eve of the visit of former US President George Bush to Pakistan in March,2006, and the unsuccessful attempt to kill Benazir Bhutto in Karachi inOctober, 2007, on her return from political exile showed that various terrorist groups have retained their capability for terrorist strikes in Karachi.
The government of Zardari has not taken any action against Brig (retd).Ijaz Shah and Lt.Gen (retd) Hamid Gul, who were named by Benazir before her return from exile as posing a threat to her security. Nor has it taken any action against Qari Saifullah Akhtar of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), who had been specifically named by her as responsible for the unsuccessful attempt to kill her in Karachi in October,2007. She had named him because in 1995, when she was the Prime Minister, he had unsuccessfully conspired with a group of army officers to have her killed along with Gen.Abdul Wahid Kakar, the then Chief of the Army Staff, and stage a coup. Nor has thegovernment of Zardari taken any action against Baitullah Mehsud, the Amir of the TTP, who was the main suspect in her assassination.
The terrorist situation in Pakistan has gone from bad to worse since the presentgovernment came to power. The terrorist groups based in Pakistan have not only stepped up their activities in Pakistani territory, but have also extended their activities beyond the borders of Pakistan. The vehicular bomb explosion outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul inJuly, 2008, the Mumbai terrorist strike of 26/11 and the kidnapping and beheading of the Polish engineer are but a few of the examples showing that the terrorists of different organisations are once again having a free run in Pakistan.
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B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For topical Studies, Chennai.
