Pakistan: More blood in Balochistan

Once again Quetta witnessed unnerving attacks when back-to-back grenade explosions killed eight and injured 10 other people. Unidentified assailants on motorcycles tossed grenades at two hairdressers’ shops and later opened fire on them. The attacks seem random without any real motive behind them except to create terror. However, considering that the attacks took place in Balochistan, the most volatile and strife-riddled province, what appears on the surface is never really the whole story.

We are hearing now of regular attacks such as this in Balochistan; just the other day a bomb attack in Sibi targeting a security forces vehicle killed one and injured scores more. These are just a couple of examples in a long sequence of such events. According to some reports, the owners of the shops were Punjabi, lending this attack an ethnic colour. Allegedly, the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) has claimed responsibility for the attack. It is so unfortunate that the genuine grievances of the people of Balochistan have taken on such a frustrated and violent hue. The insurgents are angry. They have been left out in the cold with a provincial government that does not represent them sincerely and a government at the Centre that does not extend its hand to the Baloch for an offer of political dialogue to resolve their issues. The tragic consequence of war, especially one based on nationalist sentiment, is that it enshrouds all those who come in contact with it. The hairdressers may have been Punjabi and they have become the unfortunate collateral damage in a war where the actual oppressors of the Baloch typically belong to that ethnic group.

The Baloch are tired of being suppressed by the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC), which they believe is ruling them with an iron fist. Not only are the Baloch denied any access to the immense wealth or resources buried in their soil, they are victims of the ruthless kill and dump policies of terrifying agencies they believe to be the FC. The missing persons are none other than the Baloch; imagine being an ethnic Baloch and having a loved one snatched away from you, never to be heard from again. That is their reality every day. We cannot condone violence in any form whether it comes from the nationalists who are resorting to terror tactics to get their voice heard or the oppressors of the Baloch who have abducted them, tortured and shot them. This is a protracted nationalist insurgency and must be dealt with through a political solution, not with the sort of blood for blood tactics we have been seeing of late.