Attempt on Sheikh Rashid

Electoral violence is not something unusual in Pakistan, as elsewhere in the world, but the manner in which Sheikh Rashid was attacked and injured and his two guards and a party worker killed tends to place the incident outside that pale. With polling still some days to go, the overall pace of electioneering was peaceful and mainly confined to corner meetings and publicity hoardings and streamers.
With the PML (Q) fully committed to his support and the PPP practically out of the race, Sheikh Rashid's campaign was cruising in relatively calm waters - until Monday evening, when it came under a deadly attack launched by some so-far-unidentified gunmen. The attack was too professionally executed to be the product of what is called election fever. Who were the killers and who was at their back? These questions would remain in the field until the truth is uncovered, consequent to a thorough investigation.
These questions essentially stem from a background to the by-election to NA-55, which is both intriguing and puzzling. For instance, there is no answer yet to the question why the Punjab government wanted these by-elections to be postponed? The excuse then proffered was that the bad law and order situation in the province did not allow the luxury of campaigning in the vicinity of important military offices. The Supreme Court rejected the excuse and ordered elections - now to be a contest mainly between the PML (N), which heads the government in the Punjab and Sheikh Rashid, who has the support of two principal power centres - PPP and PML (Q). Then the question arises: Whether Sheikh Rashid was given adequate security support? The concerned officials say 'yes', but only for the moves and meetings that he would identify in advance, adding that his visit to the place where the shooting took place, was not intimated to the police. That, all along Sheikh Rashid had asked for military cover for the election, one would not know why, especially when in far more tense areas like Swat and Mansehra, by-elections did not require army supervision.
Could it be the handiwork of the religious extremists? That is an even more puzzling question. When Sheikh Rashid lost both in NA-55 and NA-56 in the general elections in 2008, he blamed the Lal Masjid issue as "the most important reason behind the defeat". A few months later, on June 6, 2008, he told reporters: "I was not associated with the Lal Masjid operation, and the nation penalised the PML-government for our mistake in handling the issue".
During the visit to Mansoora, the Jamaat-i-Islami headquarters, a few days later, he must have tried to erase the impression that he was on the same page with General Musharraf on the Lal Masjid operation.Speaking at the founding ceremony of his party, the Awami Muslim League, on June 2, 2008, he, however, made it clear that the elections he had lost in both the constitutions were "contested on the slogan of Lal Haveli versus Lal Masjid".So there is the question: Was he the target of the defenders of Lal Masjid?
Let a high-level team, comprising representatives of Punjab police, ISI and IB constituted by the Punjab government, get onto the job immediately and try uncovering the plot to kill Sheikh Rashid and thus put off the by-election to NA-55.Meanwhile, the political leadership should try its best to control frayed tempers and let the ambience for campaigning remain peaceful, so that the electoral exercise takes place as scheduled. The country is passing through very difficult times. To blame that Punjab government intentionally, that it has failed in securing Sheikh Rashid, is too naked an expose of one's naivety to be made by a senior politician - given the undeniable truth that no place in the country is too far to reach by the terrorists. The focus should be on restoring the calm in the constituency so that the electoral process is completed in time. That is for the common good of the democratic forces, although they have yet to prove their entitlement to rule this country of 175 million people.