Daily Times

Even though violence should not be tolerated on battlefields, humankind does normalise losses of human lives incurred during wars. Its advocates often argue that people getting killed on these fronts are largely soldiers, men who pledge to defend their country with full knowledge of all predicaments — even lethal — that their pursuit may entail. Hence, the bloodshed is sadly expected. The horrific occasions, however, when this menace strikes civilians minding their own business in the same military-style are still neither expected nor should ever be allowed.

A group of mourners that had gathered in Karachi on Monday to grieve the sufferings of Ahl al-Bayt (family of the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) had probably never inflicted harm on any militant organisation. Yet they were still attacked by some alleged members of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami via a grenade that killed a child while injuring at least seven others. The fact that the perpetrators had deliberately chosen the place — a women majlis — and victims — women and children — to maximise their terror, if not casualties, makes this attack even more frightening. Amid uncertain times like these when the country is already struggling against a re-emerged resilience of terrorists, such sectarian attacks only serve to further deteriorate the security situation. This constant fear of violence, that too, along communal lines, has already caused an irrevocable damage to public trust in the government and national cohesion.

Repeated attacks on Shia community across the country have claimed thousands of lives over the last decade, forcing an even greater number to flee Pakistan through whatever way they can. A recent report by the Jinnah Institute pointed out the upsurge in attacks against Shia Muslims in the last three years, further asserting that such acts of religious violence had already claimed more than 1,900 lives. Last January, a bomb that blew away an Imambargah in Shikarpur killed as many as 61 people while injuring 50 others. The following month, another attack on an Imambargah in Peshawar claimed 22 lives and injured 50 Shia Muslims. Even this year, an attack on a bus in Quetta that killed five Hazara women spelt the vulnerability of all against those with sectarian bloodlust, loud and clear. Sectarian attacks in Balochistan that have largely confined Shia Hazara community to their own guarded enclaves are a secret to none. Such devastating attacks have in turn set forth rising prominence of militant organisations by those who wish to ‘fight’ and illegal migration of those who aspire to ‘flight’.

It is fortunate that the attack on Monday was not as lethal and, thus, did not result in extensive damages. However, there is no guarantee that those who had plotted this episode would sit idle. In order to prevent such horrors in the future, the authorities need to act against prominence of all religious extremists operating inside the country, on an immediate basis. What needs to be done: get rid of the infrastructure that supports religious intolerance. It is high time that authorities implemented policies that allowed a particular group to perpetuate their evil goals while playing with the lives of so many others. *