Nawaz Sharif gets tough

PAKISTAN Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has shown his iron fist in the wake of the massacre of school children at a military school in Peshawar. He has announced a 20 point policy plan to crush militancy. Pakistan will set up military courts to try cases of militancy, raise a five thousand strong counter-terrorism force and clamp down on militant groups operating under new names. Laws to combat militancy will be made more stringent. The banned terrorist outfits will get no space in electronic and print media and the repatriation of Afghan refugees will be stopped. Sharif has promised action against militant groups in Punjab which is his political power base. His party, PML (N) had been accused in the past of being inactive in dealing with militants in the province for political expediency. At a mammoth meeting, other leading political leaders including the so far ambivalent Imran Khan agreed on the setting up of military courts. The military leadership which participated in the meeting stressed the need for the installation of military courts as the existing judicial system had failed to deliver. Captured terrorists had been freed by the courts. The military courts which will be operative for two years will require a Constitutional amendment to be in operation. Analysts feel that the military courts may have systemic laws but yet if Sharif can enforce his decision, Pakistan will have a fighting chance. Meanwhile, the six year moratorium on capital punishment for terror cases has been lifted.
It is encouraging that the chief of the banned militant outfit, Lashkar-e-Jhangin, Malik Ishaq who was set to be released has been remanded to judicial custody for two weeks in a murder and terrorism case. He was involved in the assault on the Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009. What remains to be seen is the action taken against the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks in 2008.