Sectarian attack in Hangu

EDITORIAL: DAILY TIMES

In the kind of tragedy the country seems all too familiar with by now, a suicide bomber has attacked a Shia mosque in Hangu, an area close to the tribal belt next to the Afghan border in northwest Pakistan, on Friday. The fatalities and casualties are devastating, with 24 dead and some 50 wounded. The bomber chose a location where Sunnis and Shias live in close proximity. The Shia mosque was close to a Sunni mosque and both sets of worshippers were at their respective places of worship. In what was no doubt a sectarian strike, the attack claimed the lives of many Sunnis as well, further proving that terror is indiscriminate. By attacking an area where both Shias and Sunnis so closely reside, the militants may be trying to scare Sunnis away from associating and living with or near their Shia brothers. After such an attack, one would not be surprised if there were an exodus of entire Sunni communities from Shia populated areas. This attack was bloody and it did not discriminate probably in the hope that in the aftermath, Sunnis would be alienated from the Shias. We are hardly a month into 2013 and already Pakistan has seen the worst kind of bloodshed of its Shia population. This is particularly worrisome because, when targeting a whopping 20 percent of the country’s population, the crime moves on from being murder to being all out genocide. On January 10 of this year, twin suicide blasts claimed the lives of 92 Shia Hazaras in Quetta in an attack that has been the worst human rights crime against the Shias in Pakistan’s history. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) (a supposedly ‘banned’ Sunni terror group) claimed responsibility for the attack on the Hazaras, claiming that they were infidels deserving of death. While no one has yet claimed responsibility for the Hangu attack, one would not put it past the LeJ to have orchestrated another gruesome strike. If this is the trend that keeps continuing, 2013 could well become the bloodiest year for Shias in Pakistan. This blatant criminality and murderous rampage is worsening because of one simple fact: terrorists have been emboldened by the sheer incompetence of those responsible for preventing such attacks. No one has ever been caught or punished for the murderous campaign against Ahmedis and other minorities in this country and no one has been detained and brought to book for the killings of so many Shias. The government and our security agencies have failed to come up with efficient strategies to pre-empt terror threats. It is common knowledge that blunt weapons and brute military might cannot be used to counter terrorism in cities and urban areas. While military operations may work to some extent in the tribal areas against militant insurgents, one cannot expect the army to go in and bomb entire cities. What is needed most urgently is precise and coordinated intelligence and police work. It is essential that our intelligence agencies predict and pre-empt any such deadly terror attack and work in tandem with the police to prevent suicide missions. Once a human ‘bomb’ is armed and off and running on his mission, nothing can stop him from carrying out his evil task, not even death. It is essential that the Centre work with the provinces to beat back the militants from urban centres as there has been a rise in Shia killings in Karachi and Quetta, as well as the northern areas. Intelligence must be improved and the police must be better equipped to deal with the menace that has begun to seep its way into our heavily populated areas. We are witnessing a genocide and if we do not halt it, it will not be long before it proves the curtain raiser for further destabilisation of the state and society.