What can we learn from Col Shuja Khanzada’s death? With most of the officially acknowledged 57 proscribed jihadi organizations headquartered in Punjab, the province stands out as the ideological center, social sanctuary and a viral recruitment ground for extremist organisations involved in various forms of terrorism across the country. Countless members of these organizations usually operate out of mosques and madarassas – apparently benign places of worship and learning. For long, the Punjab leadership ducked under denial, but the National Action Plan jolted them out of that state, and of late, the Punjab government did take some steps against proponents of militancy and terrorism. Guided by the blunt Shuja Khanzada, the Punjab Home Department geo-tagged 13,800 seminaries across the province, and also ordered closure of 170 of them – after determining that they were somehow a major source of extremism and sectarianism in Punjab. These seminaries were located in the southern districts of Jhang, Muzaffargarh, Layyah, Rajanpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Kot Addu, Chiniot, Taunsa, Hasilpur and Vehari. Khanzada also approved freezing of about Rs 600 million of ‘doubtful’ funding of some madrassas and ordered a relentless pursuit of all those threatening public interest. The assassination of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) chief Malik Ishaq in a police encounter in Muzaffargarh on July 29 marked the high point thus far of the counter-terrorism campaign in the province. “There is no doubt Khanzada was leading the charge and stood by us in every operation,” recalls a senior police officer posted in southern Punjab. “The minister used to stay in touch with us during all critical operations and would inquire about the safety of our personnel.” Moral rhetoric hardly matters to terrorists His assassination therefore came as no surprise – in fact a logical consequence of his blunt public talk on terrorist outfits. The fact that the suicide bomber managed to walk up to him before blowing...

In recent days, we have seen the deaths of two former military officers, Lt General (retd) Hamid Gul, known for his pan-Islamist ideas, and Colonel (retd) Shuja Khanzada, whom terrorists — the purported agents of pan-Islamism — took down along with at least 18 others. The posthumous commentary on the two officers makes for an interesting study of their respective legacies. For instance, a flood ofaccolades followed Gul’s demise. Many grounded their appreciation for him citing his fierce patriotism, strategic planning, military professionalism, integrity, his love for radical forces (the Taliban) and anti-Americanism. These people never mentioned his key role in anti-democracy movements (creation of the IJI), as well as his support for forces which today are killing Afghans and Pakistanis. Gul’s was a career defined by defiance. He preferred retirement over being appointed to the post of director-general Heavy Industries Taxila, which he considered to be below his dignity. After retirement, he continued to propagate what he did while in uniform. That is why he was also erroneously seen by Indians and Afghans as a mouthpiece for the Pakistani security establishment. It is no surprise then that his detractors in India and Afghanistan declared Gul’s demise as “the death of the real Mulla Omar” for the simple reason that they often found him sitting with proponents of the Afghan Jihad Council — all of whom are viciously anti-West and anti-India. He never minced words nor held back his ‘vision’, which basically consisted of projecting the whole of the West bent on harming the Muslim ummah, regardless of the fact that the Muslim ummah itself is defined by ideological and political divisions, minimal or absent democratic norms, and is overshadowed by autocratic self-serving rulers. According to a noted blogger, it was one thing to pursue the aim of ousting the USSR from Afghanistan as our military understandably feared the possibility of Pakistan being the superpower’s...

The issue of registration of local and foreign NGOs and the case of model Ayaan Ali in recent weeks have brought terror-funding and money laundering into the public discourse. Ms Ali has been given bail due to the competence of her high-profile lawyers. But the case of registration and funding of NGOs is still before a three-member bench of the superior judiciary, which is asking the authorities some tough, probing questions. During a hearing of this case in August, the bench observed that foreign funding was like oxygen to the NGOs operating in the country and if the government choked its supply, terrorism will come to an end for good, and that the government should take practical steps to block foreign funding to NGOs. Similar observations were made on two different occasions and quoted by at least two national newspapers. These thoughts, on the correlation between the source of funding of NGOs and terrorism, require guarded scrutiny. There is a school of thought that would consider it naive and unfair to link NGOs with terrorism. There is a view that all NGOs in Pakistan are instruments of terror funding, disregarding the fact that a lot of public-focused legislation on human rights, including the right to information, the right to education, dealing with harassment at the workplace, improved labour laws, and minorities’ protection inter alia are the result of the hard work that a number of NGOs have put in. To underscore the possible negative consequences of such a view, let us look at the example of a Norwegian government action in May this year against a Norway-based NGO, Global Network for Rights and Democracy (GNRD) — based on similar presumptions. The Norwegian police raided the GNRD offices, accusing it of money laundering. The GNRD has branches in New York, and many Arab, Asian and African countries, and is known for its intellectual independence, with its narrative on human rights challenging the one that originates from Western capitals. Its founding...