IF the beginning was odd enough — a massive civilian-cum-paramilitary operation in the farthest reaches of south Punjab against an unheard-of gang of criminals — the intended denouement is a shocking and terrifying operation. Air strikes by military helicopters have been threatened against the criminals, who along with their families have retreated to a decades-old hideout in a small riverine island. Somehow, the combined might of the Punjab police, the counter-terrorism department and Rangers has neither the operational capacity nor the required patience to locate and capture criminals who have retreated to a hideout surrounded by water and from which there is no escape. The sheer monstrousness of the decision to use air power cannot be overstated. This is Punjab, the richest and best-resourced province in the country. The targets have their families — women and children — with them. This is supposed to be the beginning of a sustained push against militants in Punjab. Has the state lost its collective mind?

The militarisation of law-enforcement and counter-terrorism operations not only has profound complications going forward, but raises fresh questions about the state’s use of disproportionate violence in other regions. In Fata, the use of air power has been portrayed by the military as not only a significant component of counter-insurgency warfare, but a signal of the state’s deadliness of purpose. Yet, with no independent reporting possible from the war zones, it is not known whether air power has been used prudently. Nor is the damage caused by air strikes known — the only casualties ever reported are of militants, while ‘collateral damage’ is officially non-existent. Similarly, in Balochistan the scale and scope of so-called intelligence-based operations is never known. When remote areas are pounded by heavy munitions or so-called targeted operations are conducted, it is only the death count of alleged militants and nominal casualties suffered by security personnel that are reported. The stunning audacity of security personnel involved in the Rajanpur operation gives pause — if air strikes can be contemplated in Punjab, what is being done in areas under the de facto control of the security services?

The very fact that gangs of regional criminals are able to defy the might of the Punjab law-enforcement apparatus gives an indication of how entrenched criminals, terrorists and militants are in the province. Punjab needs a province-wide operation — south, central, north; rural and urban — and it needs to be led by the civilian apparatus with maximum cooperation from the military. But counter-terrorism should not be militarised. To deploy indiscriminate force against a very specific threat would be immoral and, more pragmatically, counterproductive. At stake is a war of ideas — what kind of Pakistan is state and society trying to build versus the millenarian wretchedness of the militants. Pakistan must win the fight against militancy, but how it does so will matter. Air strikes in a battle against criminals should be an obvious red line.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2016