Daily Times

Today marks the first anniversary of the horrific attack on lawyers’ fraternity in Quetta that claimed over 60 lives. The lawyers had just arrived in the Civil Hospital to accompany the body of the provincial bar association president who was killed earlier in the day, when a loud explosion was heard.

The whole cream of Quetta’s young lawyers was decimated in the attack.

While it is a moment to remember and honour the lawyers of the city that we lost to the senseless violence, some questions need to be asked. Have the government and law enforcement agencies been able to reverse the security lapses that led to the carnage last year? Has a mechanism been devised to ensure the coordination of intelligence information on time? Because in most large-scale terror attacks in the city, intelligence failure was termed as one of the key reasons for the loss of lives.

The commission formed to probe the attack headed by Justice Qazi Faez Isa had held the federal and provincial governments responsible in its report and slammed the authorities for their “monumental failure to combat terrorism and perform basic protocols”. The report further noted that National Action Plan (NAP) was not being implemented by the government and proscribed terror groups were free to operate. A year after the attack, the situation remains the same and those responsible to improve it are merely delivering lip-service. Banned sectarian outfits across the province are operating with impunity and the police have failed to act against them. The status of the NAP is the same as it was last year, and its implementation is clearly not the priority of the federal government right now.

The lack of progress on Quetta Commission report was also noticed by the apex court last month, and Balochistan special secretary was directed by the SC to present an update on how far it has been implemented. We urge the federal and provincial governments to ensure that all recommendations of the Quetta Commission report are immediately implemented. An increased coordination between law enforcers and the provincial government is also needed.*

Published in Daily Times, August 8^th 2017.