A bomb blast ripped through the Tablighi Markaz in Peshawar, killing 10 people and wounding 55. The attack was planned impeccably to inflict maximum casualties. Around a thousand people were gathered at the seminary for a Shab-i-Juma (Thursday) congregation when the bomb ripped through the centre. Fortunately, the casualty count was not as intense as the killers had planned. An IED was used, planted inside a ghee (cooking oil) canister. The incident was more shocking since the Tablighi Jamaat is a non-violent organisation conveying its message of Islam peacefully. They do not publicly target or condemn any faith, religion or denomination. Their only mission is to spread Islam’s message, that too within the Muslim community. However, it is not uncommon for even relatively innocuous things becoming controversial in this country. The Jamaat has been accused in 2011 by none other than the former interior minister Rehman Malik, who called it a terrorist organisation providing jihadis for the Afghan cauldron. The minister had to eat his words shortly after when Chaudhry Shujaat intervened and cleared up the matter in defence of the Jamaat. On another occasion, the US FBI expressed concern about the Tablighi Jamaat, stating in 2003 that al Qaeda was using it as a recruiting ground. The Jamaat, however, has consistently denied any involvement in terrorism over the years. These allegations have remained mere speculations and nothing has been proved against it. This attack on the Tablighi Markaz in Peshawar, especially when the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has denied any involvement, is therefore problematic. Though we do not have many reasons to believe that the TTP are being truthful, the nature of the Tablighi Jamaat’s missionary programme, which is peaceful proselytisation, the non-aggressive conduct of Tablighi students and their orthodox Wahabi tilt gives little reason to believe that the TTP would be interested in targeting the Jamaat. The involvement of some faction of the TTP, considering that they have multiplied into 40 different groups, cannot be brushed aside so easily though. Who is behind the attack is of course for the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) to find out. It is now time that the governments both in the Centre and in the province come out of their usual mode of merely verbally condemning the violence and do something practical. People are being killed like flies all over the country. Nobody is safe. On the other hand the National Security Policy has yet to emerge from its gestation phase. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar’s every press conference or speech ends on a frustrating note recalling how his peace initiative has been sabotaged by the US drone strike that killed TTP chief Hakeemullah Mehsud. In the meantime the government’s unsubstantiated claims regarding talks with some amenable groups within the TTP continue unabated. Nobody knows about those groups except the government. The fact however is that unless the major factions of the TTP abandon violence, any peace with relatively smaller groups, having little or no influence, will keep the situation as it is. It is important that those who are massacring people and involved in sabotaging the peace of the country are caught and meted out the punishment they deserve.
Dialogue is important and should be retained as an option, but allowing our people to be killed in the name of the dialogue process without any response is not a strategy; it is in fact the paralysis of the hare caught in the glare of approaching headlights. It is time the government comes out of the hallucination of talks through a consortium of mediators to bring the conflict between the state and the TTP to an end. The first thing that needs to be done is perhaps recognize that we are confronted with an enemy. Calling them wayward ‘brothers’ is giving them more leverage, something they are using to their advantage with impunity. *