I was there and very close to lal masjid so I know what happened there. Lal masjid was a bigger blunder than Kargil. Army's interference in politics is a very big problem. Pakistanis are beginning to understand that Army should be under the control of Govt and not an autonomous entity.
I was within 1-2 km of some bomb blasts but did not see anything so its not like being in close proximity one can claim to know all.
If you sincerely think the Army is lying through its teeth then i cannot change your point of view unless you are willing to trust atleast some of the things the army and state apparatus claimed and that is that.
However, I talked to some people i trust who were indirectly involved and it was hell in there with RPGs being used as well.
You think it is that easy to even take on 10 terrorists in a reinforced position?
I know that the number was much higher but in terms of the decision to take action; does it matter whether there were 10, 100 or 1000 terrorists?
The state apparatus failed to negotiate and action was taken, Army obeyed the orders and the orders were to kill terrorists not to kill civilians.Also please note that it was an anti terrorist operation and even if there was a civilian government it would have called upone the SSG to the scene eventually.
The role of army here was not political by far, it was that of facing fire and death.
It is very convenient for politicians who say there could have been a better way or that they did not want it to happen; they say this only because the public reaction was not positive due to the negative media coverage
Had the same happened in SWAT (god forbid) i am sure again the blame would have been passed to the ARMY and our Political elite would have been seen crying for the human tragedy.
Politicians everywhere are of the same ilk, they are never in the forefront of the execution of the plans and if something goes awry or gets criticised, they easily pass the buck onto someone else and life goes on!
The terrorists were there and by the losses and the time taken to flush out the terrorists one can gauge that the fight was really deadly and number of terrorists was much more than just 10.
All people involved agree that there were a lot of terrorists and they had prepared many positions to use in combat which they did.
Now whether there was any other solution, it is easy to say in hindsight that we should have done something else, but the attitude of the militants and their audacity to back all sorts of good old fashioned Ghunda Gardi was there for all to see.
They were openly operating as the class monitor with a cane, by what right?
By what right did they have permission to implement anything outside their school?
Was it a legal role?
Was it a social role agreed upon by the people who begged for the burqa clad brigade and their male counterparts to impart holy justice upon the land?
Why is it that if one gives a religious flavour to their illegitimate actions, they get away so easily?
There is no doubt that what they were doing was wrong and the fact that even one of them had a weapon which he was displaying as a threat to anyone who dared stop them was something which should have resulted in an armed response by the government.
No country, law, code would tolerate such non sense by sitting quietly.
I think it was a tragic event but i also think the outcome was unavoidable in those circumstances and we cannot blame the government for taking action.
P.S. I am sorry to mods for derailing the thread into another direction.