Pakistan: Politicians under attack

Daily Times

In one lethal incident after the other, the corpses of women, children, the elderly and young men keep piling up, scarring the mental, emotional and social psyche of the population across the country. The very nature and irregularity of methods employed to unleash violence make it impossible for any effective system to be put in place that may act as an impediment to any further attacks. In the absence of a solid and effective counterterrorism policy, implementation of whatever excuse of a policy there is in existence; inadequate resources available to the security agencies, scarcity of manpower, and the fear of the next attack that could be an IED, a suicide bomber, a remote-detonated device away, fear looms large, and there is no respite in sight. As 16 people died and several were injured in a suicide bombing in Peshawar on Tuesday, the sense of grief was manifold. The attacked venue was an Awami National Party (ANP) rally. The politician in the forefront who sustained injuries was the brother of the slain ANP leader Bashir Ahmed Bilour and former federal minister for railways Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, and the dead included a child. The senior leaders of the ANP, despite being under open threat from the TTP, were deprived of security by the caretaker set-up, protesting which the ANP leader Asfandyar Wali Khan wrote to the Election Commission of Pakistan, but to no avail. The three parties that are secular in their stances — the PPP, MQM and ANP — are considered an obstacle in the implementation of the radical, fanatical manifesto of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and are in a constant line of fire. No safeguard seems to work when it comes to the ANP. The audacity with which the Taliban assumed responsibility of the attack through their spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan’s telephonic message reveals the outrageousness of the militant group, which seems to declare: we are not scared to attack repeatedly until we remove all obstacles from our way. The inability of Pakistan’s security agencies to deter such attacks sadly seems to reiterate that. Meanwhile a remote-controlled bomb ripped through the motorcade of the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Nawab Sanaullah Zehri in Balochistan, killing four people, including his son, brother and nephew, and wounding 30. This tragedy came about when the convoy was en route to Zehri from Anjeera during the election campaign that is underway in most parts of Pakistan these days. This deadly incident appears to have the imprimatur of the Baloch insurgents, who seem to be on a vengeance spree amidst the constant ‘kill and dump’ policy of the Frontier Corps and its mercenary death squads, and to sabotage the elections in the province. The two very unfortunate events marking more deaths and mayhem in the troubled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan are clear indications of the attempts from two different sets of actors to sabotage the process of electioneering and eventually the election on May 11. Albeit there is a sense of tremendous fear among people in these areas to assemble in open spaces now, the need of the moment is not to cave in in the face of these attacks. These elections are not only a historic first in terms of a democratic transition, any obstacle to their timely holding would engender a bigger political crisis. Succumbing to the threats of the TTP would be tantamount to saying the will of the terrorist is stronger than that of the state. Unfortunately, the previous government failed, as has the caretaker one, to find ways and means to talk to the Baloch insurgents, which may have led to a better outcome. Now, it does not seem the violence will subside long enough to peacefully hold the elections.