Pakistan: Looking beyond terrorists

Terrorists Monday wreaked carnage of the innocent Muslims at a Madrassa in Sewak village in Kurram tribal region in which 23 people were killed and over 70 others injured leaving behind pools of blood and human organs scattered around. The participants of rally cried for loved ones falling victim to man-made havoc. Having no faith in the hapless and helpless political administration and the security forces, the local residents of Khurram Agency took bodies of their relatives to their villages instead of taking them to hospitals for pursuing further action against the attackers. What a shame! The political administration is in a shambles. The creditability of the security agencies or their security framework installed to protect the lives of the people has gone down the drain. At least this is a conclusion one comes to after watching so many unabated bomb attacks on the election rallies. It also badly exposed preparedness of the security force to meet any emergency and eventuality as after the explosion, by the time the security forces arrived in the remote and mountainous Parachamkani area. The local people had already retrieved the bodies, and had shifted the injured to hospitals. After brutalizing the innocent people including children, the TTP spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan, claiming the responsibility, says for a long time, the TTP had been trying to locate and kill Munir Orakzai. His name was even mentioned in the video massage of Hakimullah Masud yet the security offered to him seamed insufficient but to the utmost surprise of all, and for the reasons best known to the JUI-F, its candidate for NA-37, bailed out the terrorist outfit, saying that the TTP is not behind the Monday’s blast at their rally. He may have a reason to say this. His rhetoric should not be brushed aside rather it needs a careful consideration and analysis. Somehow, the target of the blast has escaped unhurt. Alas! His activists were not so lucky. After Monday’s carnage, Tuesday too saw no respite in attacks. Three more people were killed in PK-96 constituency of Lower Dir. A curfew was imposed in Hangu district after an explosion targeting a Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) candidate in the district’s Doaba town in Khyber Pakhtunkwa province killed ten persons and injured 22 others. The reports pouring out from Balochistan and Karachi are no different. Having a total disregard for the rulers and security agencies, the TTP is ruling the roost and the rest are just chasing the shadow of the ghost having no clue what-so-ever. Thousands of the Army troops, Para-military personnel and police have been put on guard to make the environment in the country best suited to hold elections on May 11. But it looks like as if each of the security step taken so far has proved insignificant. Is that really true? No, it is not true. No one can believe that a handful of terrorists can sustain the military might that Pakistan has. There is something wrong some where else too. Now the people must stop running for life like herds of wild-beasts do in forests. The time is ripe to look around to flush out all sorts of militancy--be it exists amongst ranks of political parties or in religious outfits. Sooner or the later, the political parties and the religious organizations have to revisit their fund-raising policies and schemes under garb of donations. Sitting in nicely controlled temperatures, the rulers condemn the deadly incidents thereafter a dead silence prevails till something more heinous comes to fore for the people to mourn at. Sequence is continuing for a long time and it may not come to an end till the people of Pakistan stand up to fight for their lives themselves, forcing the political leadership to undertake a process of cleansing within their ranks.