Daily Times

Sir: There have been three deadly terrorist attacks in Pakistan over the last three days. All have targeted politicians. Two of these attacks have been successful. The first was the Awami National Party’s Haroon Bilour, who was killed in a suicide bomb blast on July 10. After this, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal’s Akram Durrani was targeted, but luckily he survived the attack. Next came the attack on a Balochistan Awami Party rally in Mastung on July 13, which killed PB-35 candidate Nawabzada Siraj Raisani. There are also numerous innocent and unnamed Pakistani citizens who were killed or maimed in these heinous attacks. Firstly, these attacks show us that a snake can be dangerous even with it’s head chopped off. Even though Mullah Fazlullah was killed in a US drone strike last month, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan continues to be able to strike Pakistan. Therefore, all institutions, the media and common citizens must strengthen their resolve to fight terrorism and extremism wherever they find it. The authorities must also look back on the National Action Plan, which seems to have been ignored in recent years.

Secondly, the relevant authorities must explain why these politicians and their rallies were left vulnerable to attack. Because of the timing of these attacks, parties are no longer competing for votes on an equal footing. In short, the entire electoral process has been marred. This is a major failure on the part of the caretaker government. The judiciary should also answer for why they deprived politicians of their security details now that these tragedies have occurred.

Murtaza Hassan

Lahore

Published in Daily Times, July 14^th 2018.