Angered at the release of Jamaat ud Dawa founder Hafiz Saeed, commentators in Pakistan, instead of holding the Lahore High Court responsible, questioned the efficacy of the investigating agencies, who failed to provide tenable evidence against the Lashkar supremo. The News’ editorial on June 4 observed: “The court had no option given that no charges had been pressed against Saeed. One can only wonder why it has proved so difficult to nab a man who is accused of heading organisations involved in multiple terrorist attacks..... We must tackle terror wherever it exists..... The failure to prove charges against men accused of involvement in violence in the past has been a key factor in their growth. The courts cannot of course be blamed for doing what is just. They can only act on the basis of what is placed before them. It is up to the law-enforcement agencies to now explain why they have been able to produce no charges at all against a man for whom full-fledged raids were conducted under the full glare of TV cameras late last year.”

Dawn’s editorial on June 4 offered Pakistan’s Parliament some food for thought: “Do we have the laws that can put such people out of business while acknowledging the difficulty of tracing any particular crime to a group’s top leadership? It appears not. Clearly, this is a matter for Parliament to debate and to draw up a set of a laws as Pakistan presses ahead in its counter-insurgency activities in the northwest and Fata. The issue is bigger than just Hafiz Saeed and the Mumbai attacks — it extends to militant leaders like Maulana Fazlullah and Baitullah Mehsud, too. Imagine a scenario in which Fazlullah or Mehsud are captured by the state and are held for trial: Is it beyond the realm of possibility that they too may be set free on technicalities because the laws of the land are inadequate to deal with such leaders?”

... contd.