Act now,at least

Saleem Shahzads journalism straddled a very difficult space in Pakistan,consistently reporting on the links between terror networks and sections of the army and intelligence. His last Asia Times Online article claimed that al-Qaeda attacked PNS Mehran because of the navys ongoing investigations against certain naval officers with links to religious terror networks,and the second part of that investigation was set to indict the military even further. And so his recent abduction,torture and murder,which many suspect the security agencies of having engineered,could equally have been carried out by a terrorist group.

Shahzads killing has shocked the world,and focused renewed attention on the ease with which oppositional voices are mysteriously silenced in Pakistan whether it is someone who investigates the dark side of power,like Shahzad,or politicians like Salman Taseer or Shahbaz Bhatti who were killed for objecting to the illiberal blasphemy law,or even the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in broad daylight. And these murders seem to go unpunished,almost as if the victim had provoked forces far greater than he or she could face down. Whether it is the struggle between conservative Islam and liberal modernity or the complicated tangle between the army,intelligence and various terrorist groups,open killing has now almost been normalised. This murderous culture is unsustainable,if Pakistan is to survive intact,rather than implode under the pressure of these competing forces.

This is a fork in the road for Pakistan. Osama bin Ladens killing and the consequent spotlight are piling up pressure on the security establishment to break out of the old,destructive patterns they may have no option but to step up their game in North Waziristan and seriously go after the terrorist groups they had tacitly nurtured. Perhaps this could also signal a more fundamental internal reorientation. India,for its part,knows that stabilising Pakistan is not in our own narrow,self-serving interest it is a common concern shared by China and the West. Rather than these scenes that seem to indicate a slow-motion disintegration,Pakistan could use this opportunity to redefine its politics and its institutions.