The Home Adviser’s statement that weapons looted from police stations will not be used during the election may sound reassuring at first glance, but in reality it is a carefully crafted declaration of impunity. There is no visible, effective, or sincere government initiative to recover the weapons. Why there is none is no longer a mystery. The looted arms have already reached the hands of groups aligned with the government.
This silence is not an administrative failure; it is a deliberate political decision. The state knows where the weapons are and who possesses them, yet it has chosen to shut its eyes. Because these weapons have now become the unofficial guarantee for holding on to power, a tool of intimidation, and the core instrument of controlled anarchy.
The plan does not end here; it is taking an even more dangerous shape. After the so-called election is over, these weapons will be dumped on the streets and a theatrical “recovery operation” will be staged. Evidence will be erased, blame will be shifted to unidentified forces. Then, once firmly in power, a new armed control structure will be built through the import of Pakistani and Chinese weapons—one in which the state will be strong, but the people will remain unsafe.
The most alarming information is that this entire blueprint was allegedly conveyed to Jahangir by militants themselves. If this information is true, it clearly shows that militancy and state power are no longer separate; somewhere along the way they have begun to operate in each other’s shadow.
This is not merely a question of an election.
Nor is it only a crisis of law and order.
It is an open declaration of a state’s moral bankruptcy.
A state that compromises with the looting of weapons does not ensure the security of its people—it ensures only the security of its power.
