At least 43 people were killed and over 100 injured yesterday evening in a bombing at the shrine of Shah Noorani in Khuzdar district of Balochistan. The blast took place at the spot where dhamal was being performed. The attack was claimed by Islamic State or Daesh, but doubt has been cast over its claims of previous attack. There is little or no doubt about the fact that the real threat emanates from internal security issues - sectarian violence and religious extremism. Consider: Could a human be so much inhuman as believed to be are the two members of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi who were arrested the other day in Karachi by the Counter Terrorism Department of police. Going by the killings they confessed and the weapons they had stockpiled they can't be rated as humans; they must be some kind of fiends tasked to destroy the humanity. They are allegedly involved in some 28 cases of targeted-killings and other acts of terrorism. Those alleged killed by them include renowned sufi singer Amjad Sabri, a number of army and police personnel. And the weapons recovered from them include three SMGs, two MPS rifles snatched from police and a large quantity of hand grenades and IEDs. They have been identified as Asim aka Kapri and Ishaq aka Bobby and they belong to the Naeem Bukhari group of the Laskhar. Not that they were not in the sights of the law-enforcing agencies; in fact, Asim Kapri was arrested in 2013 and two years later was enlarged on bail. How come then only now when the CTD launched campaign against sectarian-inspired terrorism they have been arrested, and why not all the months and years when they were on a killing spree. Is it then the case that while the two of them were permanently on their job the CTD acts by fits and starts. The charge then sticks that compliance with the National Action Plan has been half-hearted and the oxygen supply to the killing machines was not interrupted. One would have no beef with provincial authorities who took special pride in getting hold of Kapri and Bobby. But one would also like to know why this evil couldn't be nipped in the bud. Is it a secret anymore that sectarian terrorism stems from within the known religious parties and grist for the killing machines is supplied by the seminaries affiliated to these parties? Why it took that long to complete geo-tagging of the seminaries, and only now that it is done the Rangers launched the crackdown. One may not be wide the mark in believing that the Kapri-Bobby arrest is nothing more than an effort to counter the latest uptick in sectarian violence.
Time has come that leaders of religious parties and factions should be told point-blank that they are guilty of drilling a hole in the bottom of the very ship they are on board. They may be asked do they want Pakistan to be another Syria, Iraq or Yemen that are being demolished brick by brick by none else but by their own brothers-in-faith nationals. In Pakistan, we are still some distant away from that kind of self-destruction. But should our governments persist in inaction against the fiend-producing seminaries, as seems to be presently the case, we would be left with no option but to be in the company of that unenviable league. With so much legal authority in hand and for so long one wonders why the law-enforcing agencies are still far from defeating the forces of sectarianism. One would think that instead of claiming the big kill, as the provincial government in Sindh claims to have done over the arrests of Kapri and Bobby, it needs to conduct an in-depth reappraisal of the entire saga of sectarianism. There has been a talk of reforming the working of the religious schools. Yes that is overdue. The fact is that time for sweet talk with the leadership of seminaries has passed. The government must tighten its grip on their affairs and where necessary take over their control. Perpetrators of sectarian violence should be treated as enemies of state; they should be dealt with sternly.
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