The powerful bomb blast that killed about 20 Namazis in an Imambargah in Karachi on Monday, in quick succession to the preceding day's ghastly assassination of Mufti Shamzai, should leave little to doubt about the terrorists' resort to the oft tried sectarian divide to achieve their nefarious ends.
As repeatedly pointed in these columns, although the terrorists have more than one way to camouflage their identity and intention, they cannot but betray themselves from unmistakable similarity in their methods on all occasions.
This, of course, has reference to the beastly urge to kill and destroy. Needless, as such, to point out, they appear to be all set to destroy Karachi, the nerve centre of the nation's economy.
This may be partly attributable, among other things, to fears haunting them from the government's intensified focus on protecting foreign interests, both political and economic, as associated with this city.
Viewing the increasingly alarming situation from this angle, one is apt to be intrigued by the failure of the government to deal with them effectively in minor as well as major onslaughts.
It will, however, be noted that the two latest terrorist strikes in Karachi seem to have made the government aware of the seriousness and scale of the threat. Prompt notice of the ghastliness of the challenge, President General Pervez Musharraf has spoken of his decision to spell out a special strategy to save the city and to restore its long disturbed peace and tranquillity.
This is imperative indeed in view of the havoc wrought by the Shamzai assassination and the Imambargah blast as also its immediate aftermath.
Unprecedented lawlessness broke out immediately after the news of the blast, as protestors took to the streets and attacked public transport, burnt cars and motorcycles, with violence spreading out to many other city areas and paralysing life in most of the localities.
Now that religious leaders of all sects have forcefully condemned the terrorist activities and exhorted people to face the grisly situation with courage and calm, thereby strengthening the prospects of peace in the light of the President's declaration, the threat does not appear to have ended automatically.
Reference, in this regard, may be made to a countrywide strike call for Friday given by the Secretary General of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and opposition leader in National Assembly, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, against the assassination of renowned scholar Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai.
He has appealed to the people to keep businesses voluntarily shut to prove that they abhor the killings of religious scholars. Now this kind of protest can easily be exploited by the merchants of death and destruction, and so it needs to be deferred in the larger interest of peace which the city so desperately requires.
In the circumstances now prevailing, it will be in the fitness of things for the government to form a national alliance against terrorism, comprising not only the religious groups and political parties, but also non-governmental organisations engaged in nation-building efforts.
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