PTI Chairman Imran Khan has been making excuses for July 29 inexcusable incident in which some 100 Taliban attacked DI Khan prison and released 248 prisoners, among them 49 militants, and beheaded four Shia prisoners. At first, he blamed a lack of intelligence co-ordination, saying the provincial government would set up its own intelligence agency. But soon it emerged that this time actionable intelligence was made available to the KPK government well in advance of the incident, yet it failed to prevent the attack. At his Sunday's news conference in Islamabad, he again pointed fingers at others, asking how in the presence of an army division in and around DI Khan, elite force, police and special jail police, the militants had managed to get their men freed? So far as the provincial government was concerned, he claimed that "all necessary preparations" were made to avert the attack. Three security cordons were set up around the jail, he said, and machine gunners were also posted at strategic positions, but nobody put up a fight. Sounding desperate he asked "If nobody on-ground is willing to fight then what can the provincial government do in such circumstances?"
Indeed, the provincial government had made preparations. According to reports, a rehearsal was also held a day before the incident. Yet that did not help. The obvious reason is that the police are no match, either in training or in equipment with well-armed, battle hardened militants who have been fighting the Army for years. The militants are well-conversant too with tactics military men employ to overwhelm an adversary. Facts on the ground indicate that the government failed to grasp the gravity of the challenge. Such a large number of TTP men arrived at the prison without countering any resistance several miles along the way. It was only after the incident that the provincial government ordered setting up of seven checkposts jointly manned by the Army and police personnel. The measure shows that the Army was asked to come in aid of the civilian authorities after-the-fact rather than as part of 'necessary preparations'. Had such a request gone out earlier, things would surely have been different.
Some have unfairly criticised the KPK government, citing its stance that negotiations rather than use of force should be the preferred way of dealing with the extremists challenging the writ of the state to argue that it lacks the will to do the needful. It is pertinent to recall here a similar jailbreak in Bannu last year under the previous government headed by the ANP (the PTI is now saying the mastermind behind the DI Khan jailbreak is Adnan Rashid, a death row prisoner freed from Bannu Jail). No one can accuse the ANP of not having had the necessary will. But the present incident shows that if any lessons were learnt from that experience, they were forgotten. Rank ineptitude led to the release of dangerous enemies of the state and the brutal murder of four prison inmates. No excuse is good enough by way of an explanation for what has happened. Imran Khan told the news conference that the provincial government had initiated a high-level inquiry into the incident, and that its findings will be made public. The government can hold its own inquiry, but given the nature and magnitude of the crime, an impartial inquiry is also in order. The nation needs to have satisfactory answers to all the disturbing questions raised by Imran and others. It would be only proper therefore for the provincial government to request the Chief Justice of the Peshawar High Court to set up a high-level commission to find out what accounted for the fiasco and why.
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