Nothing startling in revelations of former Taliban spokesman

ISLAMABAD: There is hardly anything startling in leading, dreaded terrorist Ehsanullah Ehsan’s revelations made in a confession recorded in the custody of the Pakistan Army but what was stunning was his turning in after a long criminal life with Pakistan’s enemies.

A few days back, the news of Ehsan’s surrender was broken by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Maj-Gen Asif Ghafoor, who also said that further information about him will be publicly shared if and when required and necessary.

However, the good news is that the most horrific terrorist has walked in the army’s custody, ending his despicable life.

The list of his crimes is very long that claimed hundreds of innocent lives in terrorist attacks apart from the overall damage to Pakistan done during his nine-year long association with the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Jamaatul Ahrar (JuA).

Why is there nothing astounding in Ehsan’s disclosures? What he has confessed has been stated by top civilian and military authorities for a number of times in the past. This assertion was vehemently stressed after every high-profile terrorist attack struck Pakistan.

It was repeatedly emphasized that the Indian spy agency, the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), and Afghan intelligence outfit, the National Director of Security (NDS), are major players in terrorism in Pakistan.

Top Pakistani leaders have been paying whirlwind visits to Afghanistan to infuse sanity in Kabul to rein in terrorists operating from its soil but to no avail.

Barring exceptions, everybody in Pakistan instantly believed what Ehsan confessed because almost everything was in public knowledge as it had been coming from senior officials in their public statements ad nauseam.

An important aspect is that what the Pakistani authorities have been proclaiming has been confirmed by a top man of the terrorist outfit. The catch is no doubt unprecedented and will demoralize the organization.

It will be highly encouraging if Ehsan’s change of mind dents the terrorist organization and persuades some of its more prominent leaders to submit and hand themselves over to Pakistani authorities. They may depend upon the treatment that Ehsan will receive at the hands of the Pakistani authorities.

What he said and what was already known was that the Pakistani Taliban are agents of India; his admission of the terrorist organizations’ nexus with Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies and security forces in carrying out subversive activities in Pakistan; recruitment of people by misleading them in the name of Islam, especially the youth, for their own gains; the TTP’s double face for not coming up to the standards it advocated; extortion of money from innocent Muslims by it; killing and kidnapping of people; carrying out of bombing of public places, attacking schools, colleges and universities etc.

Ehsan’s confession reinforced Pakistan’s stand based on unimpeachable intelligence information that the RAW and NDS were deeply involved in sponsoring terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

This came in the wake of the admission of Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, awarded death sentence by a military court, of fomenting trouble in Pakistan. Ehsan’s admission may further put India on the back foot.

The terrorist’s statement also confirmed that he and his comrades fled from Pakistan to take refuge in Afghanistan due to the military operation in the tribal areas.

He conceded that after the operation in North Waziristan, they all escaped to Afghanistan where he saw these people developing contacts with India and RAW. India and RAW supported, provided finances and targets and the TTP took money for every activity it did.

There were countless devastating terrorist attacks that rocked Pakistan over the past nine years, which Ehsan, flanked by arms wielding masked men, had claimed. Pakistani authorities are apparently yet to firmly decide the treatment to be meted out to Ehsan.

His realization that he and his outfits were committing most horrific crimes against humanity as well as Pakistan came very late when multitudes of innocent people had been killed.