ISLAMABAD // Pakistan militants are not listening to an antiterror petition that has attracted 63 million signatures. In what is believed to be the biggest such lobby effort anywhere in the world, a third of Pakistanis signed up to denounce acts of terrorism in a campaign titled Yeh Hum Naheen - "This is not us" - over a period of just four weeks during the summer. Children older than 11 were also allowed to take part, given the young age at which extremism is taking hold in society. The campaign results announced this week easily shattered the previous record for largest petition - the 24m people who signed the Jubilee 2000 campaign against third world debt - and challenged the notion that Pakistan is a radicalised society where Islamic extremism has a broad base of support.
The militants, however, have their own agenda as two attacks in Islamabad and in the country's north-west yesterday left as many as 10 injured and 11 dead. The Yeh Hum Naheem campaign was launched last year in Pakistan with a hit song featuring some of the country's biggest stars, including Ali Zafar and Haroon. The campaign - the brainchild of Waseem Mahmood, a British-Pakistani media consultant - set out to prove that people were against the violence that comes in the guise of Islamic "jihad".
"This is about giving people a common platform to fight terrorism," Mr Mahmood said. He said all signatories had to verify their identity and most of the names were collected in face-to-face canvassing, though it was also possible to take part online and by text message. Campaign organisers are in the process of verifying the milestone with the Guinness Book of Records. Yeh Hum Naheem began with financing by Muslim businessmen in the UK and Indonesia and has gained the backing of Pakistani celebrities as well as the media, where free airtime and full-page ads in newspapers were donated in an advertising blitz that kicked off this week.
But as parliamentarians were locked in the second day of a confidential briefing on the security situation by the country's spy chief yesterday, two attacks served as a chilling reminder of why the campaign was initiated. A suicide bombing at the police headquarters in Islamabad injured up to 10, while 11 were killed in the north-west when a police van carrying prisoners was blown up. Four school children in a passing bus were among the dead. The two blasts bring the number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan to 91 since July last year, after security forces stormed Islamabad's radical Red Mosque, resulting in around 100 deaths. Over 1,200 people have been killed in subsequent suicide bombings.
The attack on the police complex on the edge of Islamabad yesterday targeted the barracks of the antiterrorist squad. One side of the building collapsed but the police officers that would normally be inside were instead deployed around parliament to guard the building while members of the assembly were given a confidential assessment of the terror threat. The Islamabad police chief admitted that there had been a serious security lapse. "There are many questions. How was the vehicle able to enter?" said Asghar Gardezi. A letter found at the blast site warned of more attacks unless Pakistan quits Washington's "war on terror". Kamran Lashari, the senior bureaucrat for Islamabad, said: "The other side wants to show its potency and its determination. We have to measure up and deal with it." Separately, air strikes in the valley of Swat, in the north-west, killed 20 militants. In parliament, members of the assembly were shown gory images of militants slaughtering security officials and tribal elders, on the second day of a briefing by Lt Gen Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, the new head of the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. The stated aim of the special session of parliament was to produce a consensus among politicians on the antiterror fight. But lawmakers from Nawaz Sharif's party, the biggest opposition group, said issues of policy were not addressed, and they questioned even the most basic premises of the approach to security. "What are the details of our co-operation with the United States and Nato in this war on terror?" said Khurram Dastagir, a member of parliament for Mr Sharif's party. "How can an operation that began with a supposed effort to apprehend a few dozen foreign militants mutate into a massive war in which 100,000 Pakistani troops are involved?" Mr Mahmood, the Yeh Hum Naheem campaign founder, said Pakistan's best hope was its own people. "The power to stop all this [terrorism] happening lies with the people," he said. "The government, and foreign powers, really can't do anything about it." sshah@thenational.ae
