Pak ‘crackdown’ on terror

Less than three weeks after the Pulwama attack, Pakistan has launched a purported crackdown on banned militant outfits. Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar’s son Hamad Azhar and brother Abdul Raoof are among 40-odd members of such organisations who have been taken into preventive detention. The Imran Khan government has also taken control of several seminaries and assets belonging to Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa and its wing Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation.

Pakistan is insisting that this visible action has not been taken under any pressure, but it’s easy for anyone to put two and two together. India’s skepticism over the developments stems from the neighbour’s abysmal track record. Similar ‘preventive’ steps have proved to be an eyewash on several occasions. That explains why the terror factories have continued to operate from Pakistani soil even after the 2001 Parliament attack, the 2008 Mumbai outrage and the 2016 assault on the Pathankot airbase. How far Pakistan goes this time to tackle terror would establish its sincerity, or lack of it.

Though it is too early to say that the winds of change have started blowing from across the border, an unmistakable ray of hope has emerged. Pakistan announced on Tuesday that it would send a delegation to India on March 14 to discuss a draft agreement for setting up the Kartarpur corridor. This will be followed by the return visit of the Indian team to Islamabad on March 28. With barely eight months to go for the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, this diplomatic breakthrough could help in easing bilateral tensions. In another apparent confidence-building measure, Pakistan Punjab’s provincial government, acting on the directions of PM Imran Khan, dismissed its Information and Culture Minister, Fayyazul Hassan Chohan, after the latter’s anti-Hindu remarks caused a furore. The prompt action reflects Pakistan’s eagerness to demonstrate a zero-tolerance approach to intolerance. Having adopted a multi-pronged strategy to mollify the international community, the onus is now on the powers that be to show that this won’t turn out to be yet another false dawn.