CONFUSING, bizarre and reckless the different approaches by different governments and centres of power to militant groups and affiliated networks that have been outrightly banned or placed on watch lists by the Pakistani state and the United Nations surely undermines the country`s credibility. A week in which the federal government moved to block financing and assistance to militant groups and ostensibly non-violent, charitable wings of those groups, ended with the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa sharing a stage with the leadership of the Difa-iPakistan Council, an umbrella organisation that has several banned militant groups as its constituent units. Incredibly, after the Punjab government reportedly prevented Hafiz Saeed from leaving the province to attend the DPC rally in Peshawar, participants in the rally chanted slogans against the Punjab government and Mr Saeed was allowed to make a telephonic address. What is going on? To be sure, the federal government and the PML-N are also contributing to the national confusion. The suspicion is that the latest move to block financing and assistance to proscribed groups and those on watch lists is largely for external, international consumption rather than a serious effort to curb the activities of groups associated with militancy and extremism. Moreover, with a general election scheduled for later this year, it is likely the PML-N will seek electoral adjustments with extremist elements in constituencies where such elements are influential just like the PML-N has done before and other mainstream political parties have continued to do. The so-called mainstreaming policy of the security establishment is also a significant destabilising factor.

While theoretically mainstreaming may be possible, the secrecy in which the policy has been conceived and the absence seemingly of any preconditions for groups seeking to become part of the political mainstream is deeply unsettling. Indeed, it is possible that mainstream politics may be infused with extremism as a result of mainstreaming rather than the other way round.

A confused, contradictory approach to dealing with militancy and extremism could also unravel many of the gains made in the fight against militancy so far. More than a decade of counter-insurgency campaigns and counterterrorism operations have produced a hard-won semblance of stability and security in the country. But before the state decided on a zero-tolerance policy towards antiPakistan militants, a confusion similar to what is apparent today allowed militants and extremists to run amok. The state`s legal responsibilities, both domestic and international, ought to be taken more seriously. Clear criteria need to be drawn up for inclusion of groups in banned lists or to be put on a watch list. Once a group is listed, the specific actions that all tiers of the state have to take should be made public and enforced. Fairness demands listed groups have a right to appeal. But sanity demands that double standards, double games and dual standards be abandoned.