A nation at war with extremism requires that it’s leaders and political parties rise above their political and personal differences in order to achieve a common goal. However the petty politics and personal vendettas of the senior leadership of PML-N are proving to be a major hindrance to this fight against terrorism. Contrary to the popular perception and unlike the terrorism wave which spread after the Lal Masjid operation in 2007, majority of the terrorist attacks being perpetrated today in the country are acts of what we call Punjabi Taliban. GHQ attack, Sri Lankan cricket team attack, police academy attacks in lahore, parade lane attack and the data darbar attack are examples of the growing participation of Punjab based terrorist groups in this cycle of violence. However, those handling the affairs of the Punjabi government appear oblivious to this danger. Both the Sharif brothers and their chief whip in Punjab Provincial Law minister Rana Sanaullah have failed to condemn the perpetrators of these acts and their motives behind these attacks despite repeated calls for an outright condemnation of terrorist by the masses. The PML-N government’s response remains limited to an expression of sorrow and consoling to the victims of such attack. In a moment of rare honesty, the provincial chief minister even made an appeal of mercy to the Taliban asking them to spare his province from attacks since his party shared their views. Now imagine what signal such an appeal would give to the common man and the terrorists. It is quite obvious to everyone why PML-N holds the religious right so close to its bosom. Notwithstanding the famous attempt of PML-N in 1998 to have Nawaz Sharif declared as Ameer-ul-Momineen, there are numerous examples of the PML-N trying to please the extremist parties in Punjab to gain their vote bank. Law Minister Rana Sanaullah has been openly seen campaigning with the leaders of Sipah-Sihaba and other banned wahabi extremist groups during the by elections. The same groups which are responsible for various attacks against Christians, barelvis, shias and ahmadis. The horrifying aspect of this charade is that our mainstream media repeatedly fails to point out this duplicity of PML-N. Salmaan Taseer’s assassination offers another view to the extremist favouring ideology of PML-N. It is true that PML-N might not have been directly involved with Salmaan Taseer’s assassination but no one can deny the fact that the well planned PML-N sponsored character assassination of Salmaan Taseer was a major contributing factor to the build up behind his eventual assassination. PML-N initiated a well thought out character assassination campaign against Salmaan Taseer depicting him as a morally corrupt, alcohol drinking western favouring liberal who had committed blasphemy himself. This started with Rana Sanaullah’s waving of Salmaan Taseer’s family’s private pictures on the steps of Punjab assembly and culminated in him insinuating that Salmaan taseer had himself committed blasphemy in various talk shows being hosted by paid proxies of PML-N. In the aftermath of his assassination, PML-N was quick to distance itself from the whole affair absolving themselves of all responsibility while again refusing to condemn the extremism which contributed to the act in the first place. The same routine is being repeated after the killing of Federal Minister Shahbaz Bhatti where the provincial chief minister appears more keen on defending the Punjabi Taliban then out rightly condemning extremism and terrorism. This is totally unacceptable to the common Pakistani who has lost so much in this war against extremist ideology. Are we supposed to give in so meekly to the realization that the thousands of lives lost in this war have no meaning in front of a major political party of Pakistan when a matter of few votes is concerned. (Meera Ghani, a very concerned citizen)