Daily Times

Three bomb blasts in Quetta by three different organizations, Jundullah, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), in the span of a few hours left the city, and the country, reeling in shock. Smarter than the state’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies, which could neither detect nor prevent the attacks, the responsible organizations could calculate even in isolation from one another the impact of an attack on a day when the city was busy hosting one of the major political shows of a religious party. Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s rally it seems had been at the centre of the planning of all the three attackers; one that attacked the Maulana himself, the other that massacred eight Hazara Shias and the third aimed at the Frontier Corps, killing two soldiers. Maulana has been in the crosshairs of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) since 2008, and been attacked twice in 2001 in Swabi and Charsadda. Maulana has been in support of ihad for years, with the credit of running madrassas across the length and breadth of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, FATA and Balochistan. He was against the military operation in North Waziristan and even participated as a mediator to bring the peace talks between the government and the TTP to some logical conclusion. If even all this ‘good work’ could not secure Maulana from the wrath of the TTP and its affiliated groups such as Jundullah, one could imagine their designs on those considered infidels in their definition of Islam. It is a nagging thought however why only Maulana Fazlur Rehman is being attacked and not the other religious leaders who have been talking against the TTP’s policies.

The killers of the Hazara Shias, or any Shia in Pakistan, have unfortunately been the product of the same madrassas that Maulana and his affiliates have governed and managed. LeJ is killing the Hazara Shia (identifiable easily because of their looks) in Quetta mercilessly. The untouchable LeJ conducts rallies in Balochistan against Shias, it publishes hate material in local newspapers against them, and brandishes support to other equally savage anti-Shia parties, fearlessly. All this is happening under the nose of an administration that assumed power in 2013 with an aim to bring about peace in the insurgency-ridden province. But it is one thing to be in power and another to have the power to make a difference. Therefore, all that the province has been reduced to today is a potpourri of sectarian conflicts, ethnic cleansing and nationalist insurgency. Ostensibly, the impunity displayed by the LeJ and the freedom provided to the extremists in Balochistan, seems a tactical move by the establishment to take the shine away from the nationalist insurgency. Still, BLA’s killing of the FC personnel does create an impact. It serves to remind us that Balochistan has been virtually turned it into a dumping ground of Baloch nationalists’ corpses by the FC.

The killing in Balochistan is a spectacle of a state that has no laws but some self-serving tactics to run the country, with the result that Pakistan is fighting a battle for its survival on nearly every front today. There are areas and issues that have long slipped from the hands of the country’s leaders, both civilian and Khaki, owing to their flawed, duplicitous and archaic policies to secure the country’s safety from the perceived and real enemies. From Karachi to Quetta, into the hinterlands of Punjab and over to the peripheries, the fires of ethnicity, sectarianism and religious animosity have skewed the ethos of society. The much-talked of culture of intolerance speaks for it. Of what use would be Operation Zarb-e-Azb, if the government and the establishment do not take a holistic approach against terrorism and bring to end the policy of nurturing hardliners in its ranks. One expects the ritual crackdown on the LeJ and a few more words of condemnation from the government against the outfit, until the group activates again in a few months to repeat the cycle. However, it is time to extricate Balochistan along with the entire country from the vicious circle of terrorism before it explodes in our face one day. *