...the front organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba...that impact on the legal and operational status of those groups on Pak soil?
Unhappily, even in this most straightforward of cases, the Pak state is being anything but direct and honest.
The Foreign Office tells the media to check with the Interior Ministry and Nacta; the otherwise voluble and media-attention-loving Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan goes silent; anonymous bureaucrats and unnamed officials give contradictory statements; parliament is given ambiguous answers to direct questions; and nowhere does anyone in any relevant public office show any inclination to inform the public of what is or is not being done in their name.
Meanwhile,
...back at the shouting match, Bart was wondering if fisticuffs would be appropriate at this point...
the conspiracy theories are growing more feverish: an outright ban, frozen bank accounts, restrictions on foreign travel of JuD leaders -- whatever new measures have been taken, it has all been done at the behest of the US to placate an angry India and assist the Afghan government.
Such conspiracy theories do more than confuse the public; they strike at the heart of the consensus this country needs, that the fight against militancy is Pakistain's own and not imposed by the outside world on a hapless nation.
All the confusion can be cleared up by a simple, authoritative statement by the interior ministry, or -- given the implications for national security policy -- by the Prime Minister's Office. But, in a way that echoes the old practice here of saying one thing (or saying nothing) and doing another, the government has chosen to remain silent -- just as the state alternates between remaining silent about drone strikes and condemning them.
Just as once upon a time the army-led security establishment cut clandestine -- sometimes, public -- deals with bad boy groups while claiming it was opposed to religiously inspired bad boy groups existing on Pak soil. And just as the state banned Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the
Army of the Pure,an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is
banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
, but allowed it to first morph into Jamaat-ud-Dawa and now, to some extent, into the Falah-e-Insaniyat
...the current false nose and mustache of Jamaat ud-Dawa, which was the false nose and mustache of Lashkar e-Taiba...
Foundation.
A simple path towards clarity -- at least in terms of designation and profiles -- in the present instance was offered by the Supreme Court on Thursday: make public the names of proscribed groups and translate anti-terrorism laws into local languages to increase awareness.
As the Supreme Court observed, often the public is unaware that groups operating as social welfare networks or collecting charity are in fact designated by the state to be terrorist groups. That has the effect of allowing the groups to grow and even gain public affection by pretending to be something they most certainly are not.
Perhaps it will be easier to begin to believe that the era of good bad boys/bad murderous Moslems is over if the state can bring itself to name and ban all bad boy groups.