[DAWN] IN the years that Pakistain has been mired in militancy and terrorism, there has been no dearth of detractors maintaining that it is the inefficiencies of different arms of the state -- if not outright collusion -- that has allowed matters to reach such a pass. This charge is hotly denied, by state representatives who say they have no part in the mess, and by a citizenry that cannot digest the levels of ineptitude on part of the leadership that this would imply. Unfortunately, there is no denying that with distressing frequency, evidence of such monumental incompetence surfaces that questions cannot but be raised about the state's levels of political will and operational ability. In this category must be included the revelations about July's Dera Ismail Khan... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ...
jailbreak, when turbans managed to free over 250 prisoners without so much as a peep from the law enforcement and security apparatus.
The report of the inquiry commission tasked with investigating the incident, the contents of which were made public by this newspaper yesterday, constitutes an indictment of the security and law enforcement agencies. It ought to have served as a wake-up call of no minor proportions at all levels. Instead, it was shelved -- to the utter lack of surprise of those familiar with the head-in-the-sand approach in Pakistain. The report notes that over two dozen Mehsud myrmidons, accompanied by several more from Punjab, Uzbekistan and other places, managed to travel all the way from South
Wazoo to D.I. Khan. Once there, they set up pickets at 10 strategic locations around the prison, cutting off security and law enforcement personnel's access to the area. Shockingly, most of these pickets were located not far from police and military checkpoints. The turbans blew the prison's gates open with rocket-propelled grenades and over the next 45 minutes or so conducted a "methodical" search of the cells and barracks, freeing prisoners and even identifying and executing four members of a minority sect. Having done so, they dispersed; some headed back to South Waziristan, others melted into the city. All this was achieved with virtually no interference from the security and law enforcement apparatus, which had in the preceding days been beefed up, according to the report.