POREG VIEW: The headline is a grim reminder of the Shia-Sunni divide in Pakistan. And also the fact that Islam has failed to be the cementing force in the country, though it was carved out of British India as the Home for Muslims in 1947 to the dismay of its founding fathers. For Pakistan, nationalism exists today, as eminent scholar Christophe Jaffrelot says, largely as an expression against others – India.
Baluchistan has increasingly become a flashpoint for sectarian violence between majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shias. The latest attack targeted Shia Muslim pilgrims travelling to Iran and left 26 dead in Mastung, a district 50 kilometres south of Quetta, the capital of the most backward but minerally rich province. It is the deadliest on Shias since September 4, 2010 when a suicide bomber killed at least 57 people at a Shia rally in Quetta.
Brutality of the assault becomes clear from the report that gunmen had ordered pilgrims off their bus, lined them up and assassinated them in a hail of gunfire An hour after the first attack, unidentified gunmen killed another three Shias on the outskirts of Quetta. Hamid Shakil, a senior police officer is reported saying that armed men ambushed their car as they were on their way to collect the bodies of their relatives who were killed in the first attack.
This was not the first time and going by evidence, not the last time either of targeting Shia pilgrims. About two months back, on July 29 to be precise, seven Shia men were killed as they waited at a bus stand in the Saryab district to travel to Iran on pilgrimage. “The attackers came on motorcycle and opened fire on the pilgrims. All seven Shiite pilgrims were killed on the spot,” Farid Breach, a senior police officer of the area, had said then making it clear that it was a sectarian shoot out.
Thousands of people have died in sectarian attacks in Pakistan particularly since the late 1980s. Banned outfit, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is responsible for these acts. There is no credible and genuine action taken against LeJ, which like many other banned sectarian and jihadi groups is able to move freely and strike at will. The criminal are either not captured or if they are captured they are either released or given less punishment routinely since the State of Pakistan has been treating them as an extended arm of the State agencies. This is what is making a mockery of bans and Pakistan is suffering from nearly daily militant violence from Peshawar to Lahore and Islamabad to Karachi and Quetta.
Targeted killings have been taking place in Karachi, the commercial capital of the country for more than six months. Yet the authorities don’t appear to be doing anything that would arrest the slid into anarchy. Growing desperation in the public was mirrored by a comment which appeared in Dawn.
“Where is government? Is there any authority in Balochistan and Quetta? Innocent people are being martyred, who is responsible? Did Quaid Azam make Pakistan for this day? The news channels give more coverage to other useless matters but they give very little coverage to these sorts of problems which are destroying Pakistan and the Terrorists? Where do they escape? …Should the peaceful people also take weapons and start killing other innocent people? Does the government want this to happen, for God sake wake up Pakistan and its people”, a reader, who identified himself as Asad wrote.
Peace in Pakistan can only be attained only when the State decides to become a modern nation state and liquidates the Talibans, the Haqqani Network and all those nurtured at the cost of the exchequer. No questions asked!
