The suspected suicide bomb blast in an Imambargah during Friday prayers in Sialkot, killing at least 30 people and leaving dozens injured, was strongly condemned by President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and by all right-thinking patriotic people in the country, as also by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
The incident "clearly shows that terrorists have no religion and are enemies of mankind", the President said, while the Prime Minister has said that killing people at a place of worship was a "highly condemnable act". The ghastly tragedy has, understandably, met with public reaction in a manner never seen on other similar occasions in the past.
Several hundred angry protesters reportedly poured into the streets outside the mosque after the blast and clashed with the police. The army had to be called in to quell the unrest, which does not appear to have been easy enough.
The protest may be traced to an understandable feeling of anger and frustration over the government's failure to avert it. For the Friday explosion, occurring just five days after the killing of the country's most wanted al-Qaeda operative, Amjad Farooqi, the alleged mastermind of several attempts to kill President Musharraf, should have alerted the authorities to the likelihood of retaliation, which a senior police official has described as "a message that his network is still alive and operative".
At a time like this, when the intelligence outfit has seemingly gained access to the inner circles of the terrorists, every possible measures should be taken to prevent desperate counter-attacks. From all accounts of the blast so far available, it would appear that the local authorities failed to anticipate it. A new strategy now needs to be thought out to overcome the terrorist challenge in view of their threats to use women and children in future operations.
The people have had enough of terrorism over the past so many years. It must be brought to an end.
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