EDITORIAL: Weapons Galore
By the Editor

ALMOST six stinger missiles and a huge cache of arms and ammunition dumped in a compound in Muhammad Gath area of Mohmand Agency was seized by the paramilitary Frontier Corps in a predawn raid on Sunday.

Inspector General of FC Maj Gen Tariq Masood told newsmen that it was the biggest weapons’ seizure in the Tribal Areas.

It’s understood that the captured arms are of Russian, Chinese and American origin, which manifests the variety of weapons smuggled into Pakistan from different sources.

The seizure of stinger missiles is really startling. Understandably, these stingers are the old ones, which were supplied to the Mujahideen by the United States during the Afghan's war against defunct Soviet Union.

Pakistan has been victim of unprecedented weaponisation due to the developments in Afghanistan over the past few decades including fight against erstwhile Soviet Union and the US war against terror.

Though the IGFC has termed the latest seizure of arms cache as the biggest haul, yet weapons of diversified nature and origin have periodically been captured in the Tribal Areas over the years.

There have been major arms hauls during attempts of their smuggling into Pakistan.

Both NWFP and Balochistan provinces have particularly endured the massive spill over of weapons from Afghanistan over the past quarter of a century, which has led to arms proliferation throughout the country.

Millions of weapons are believed to be available in the country, which has obviously lead to increase in the crimes of all nature in recent years.

The Pakistani society has, in fact, been brutalised due to easy access to weapons. Pakistan has seemingly become dumping ground of weapons by vested interests both internal and external. As a consequence, the nation has long suffered.

Thus, it is an apt time to firmly curb the process in the interest of peace and security in the country.

It’s unfortunate that the periodic launching of drives to de-weaponise Pakistan were not taken to their logical end.

Those were rather launched half heartedly and abandoned half way through for reasons best known to the authorities.

There can be no two opinions about the fact that there is urgent need to check weapons galore in the country both for the sake of curbing crimes for public security and the nation’s soft image beyond oceanic.● 

 -  Mumtaz Hamid Rao
www.MumtazRao.net