Editorial
Tackling outlaws in south-western region
The latest drive should get to the bottom, not touch the fringes
THE police's latest move to combat terrorism by political outlaws in the south-western districts of the country seems to be well in tune with the prime minister's announcement to show no mercy to any crime and whoever its perpetrator is.
Since successive governments could do little to tackle terrorism of this particular variety holding the people of some 10 districts of the country hostage for more than four decades, it is hoped that the latest move by the law-enforcement agencies to address it would finally be able to see success.
It is worthwhile to note that all attempts to contain terrorist activities perpetrated by the outlaws somehow ended in failure in the past. So to avoid past mistakes, any fresh campaign to root out those political terrorists from the southwestern districts will have to be launched with much caution and the plan of action to this effect needs to be a well-thought-out one. On this score, the strategists of the drive should critically analyse the methods and circumstances of the previous such campaigns and their failures in order that the present one can be a failsafe one.
The reasons for the circumspection need not be overemphasised. For most of the time, the law-enforcers in charge of conducting operation in the areas infested with political outlaws had mistaken these extremist elements for common criminals. The argument in favour of treating them as common criminals is that, not unlike the latter, the former, too, are engaged in extortion, control of bus terminals, bazaars, river-landings, tender business as well as in establishing supremacy over their rivals. But at the same time, one also needs to take note of the fact that notwithstanding their similarities in the method of extortion and killing, they are apart so far as their genesis is concerned. And that alone calls for a difference in approach to deal with the two types of criminals. Small wonder, failure to understand this was behind the repeated reverses of the past.
Hopefully, the law-enforcers are aware that unlike the common-type criminals, the extremist outfits are always apt at making a martyr out of the killing of any of their members. This provides them the ground for recruitment of fresh members, though indoctrinated with a pseudo-ideology.
The strategists of the new drive against political terrorism should try to strike at such pretensions of the extremist operatives in the troubled region. It is hoped that once carried out in earnest and with thought, the latest drive to root out social and political crimes of the extremist nature from the districts in question would not end in fiasco like in the case of previous such attempts.
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