Terror Games

It is becoming apparent that neither weapons caught from the BLA or in TPP attacks have had any Indian markings or can be traced back to Indian operatives directly. The critical navel-gazing, if any, needs to be done in Pakistan itself about its own mismanagement and poor governance. Blaming India is not fetching the same resonance, and it is time to accept that something has gone terribly wrong in having invested in 'terror nurseries' and overleveraging religiosity.

- Bhopinder Singh The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry

Within Pakistan, the unforgiving regions of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan have had an especially violent 'gun-culture', for a long time. Bloody, inter-tribal, anti-'foreigner' and familial feuds are a way of life, and often the family sentinels peer at their neighbours through rifle ports.

For centuries the foreboding mountain passes were drenched with the blood of 'foreign' conquerors (today the same sentiment is afforded on the Pakistani State or 'establishment') who were either killed or made to beat a hasty retreat.

Even today, Pakistani society is highly weaponised with up to an estimated 50 million civilian-held firearms, mostly illegally. Statistically, one in every four Pakistanis could be bearing a personal weapon. Partly a means of asserting 'martial' status, pride, and time-honoured tradition, it also has immense functionality for the burgeoning private militias (terror groups, both internal and external facing), feudal warlords or Vadheras, drug peddlers, land mafias, and even partisan groups.

The sleepy hamlet or 'gun valley' on the border with Afghanistan, just 30 kms away from Peshawar, called Darra Adam Khel, personifies the gun-culture in Pakistan.

Besides the notoriety of 2,000 odd shops selling locally-made weapons/replicas of various authorized and banned bores, the cultural iconography is subliminally embedded with the marble statue of a local hero, Ajab Khan Afridi, who is believed to have ridden his horse into a British officer's house in 1923, shot dead his wife and kidnapped the officer's daughter for ransom.

Today, gunsmithing sustains livelihoods. From guns (even James Bond 'Pen Gun'), AK-47 replicas, pistols, machine guns to even anti-aircraft guns, all are on the menu. Given the limited presence of the Pakistani state in such areas, the duty of ensuring law and order (even, controls and checks) is entrusted to the tribal police or 'Khasadar' to check for any violations.