The result is before us all:

Pakistan and its neighbours are threatened like never before with what appear as sporadic, but are indeed well-planned and coordinated outbreaks of violence aimed at causing death and destruction. If not stopped with full force of the state, the menace will only grow to destabilise Pakistan as well as its relations with its neighbours. It’s nearly past time the infrastructure of terrorism that exists, albeit underground, was destroyed, and the Taliban and the like put on the run for their own lives. This should be done not just because India and the US want us to do so but to salvage what is left of the deeply fractured polity that is Pakistan today.

The writer is an editor with ‘Dawn’, based in Karachi

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