EDITORIAL: A convoy of Chinese engineers working on a power project at Port Qasim was on its way from Karachi airport to the city late Sunday night when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle near it. Two Chinese nationals were killed and at least 10 other people injured, one of them critically.
Footage of the massive blast scene showed several vehicles engulfed in flames. An insurgent group, Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), has claimed credit for the blast saying its suicide squad, Majeed Brigade, had attacked the convoy.
The BLA and its allied outfits are against the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, and have repeatedly been targeting Chinese nationals involved in various infrastructure and energy projects in Balochistan, as well as other interests in Karachi.
About two years ago, three Chinese tutors and their Pakistani driver were killed in a suicide bombing close to the Karachi University’s Confucius Institute. Before that, three gunmen had tried to enter the Chinese consulate in Karachi. The staff inside remained safe, but two police officers lost their lives in a shootout with the intruders.
The latest outrage, coming as it does following a string of other attacks, including northern Pakistan, is as embarrassing as it is shocking. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif took to X to denounce this “heinous act” and offer condolences to the Chinese people, particularly the victims’ families, vowing to leave “no stone unturned” to ensure security of all others.
The Chinese embassy while condemning the “terrorist attack” and sending condolences to the “innocent victims of both countries” asked Islamabad to “thoroughly investigate the attack, severely punish the perpetrators, and take all necessary measures to protect the safety of Chinese citizens, institutions and projects in Pakistan.”
Islamabad is already said to be close to reaching an agreement with Beijing on joint security to protect nationals of its ‘iron brother’. Equally, if not more important, is the need to address the root cause of trouble.
The usual tendency is to blame it all on this country’s arch rival, India. Indeed, there is enough verifiable evidence of New Delhi’s involvement which, a while ago, was presented in a dossier to the United Nations.
However, what enables India to patronise insurgent groups are long-standing economic and political grievances of the Baloch people, exacerbated by the despicable phenomenon of enforced disappearances. So far, the state’s response has been use of force.
A wise and workable approach, as repeatedly emphasised by leaders of mainstream nationalist political parties in that restive province, is it to engage those they call ‘angry Baloch” in conversation so as to resolve the issues underlying the insurgency, but to no avail.
This merits the question, if it could hold negotiations with the TTP terrorists, who have killed over 80,000 Pakistanis and challenge its writ, why should the state have qualms about talking to Baloch militants? Sadly, suppression through kinetic means remains the preferred policy.
In another undesirable move on Sunday, invoking section 11B of the Anti-Terrorism Act the government declared as “unlawful” the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), an unarmed peaceful group active in tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
As expected, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has expressed its indignation over the measure, pointing out that the PTM is a rights-based movement that has never resorted to violence; it always advocated its cause within the framework of the Constitution.
Veteran politician and a senior leader of the National Democratic Movement Afrasiab Khattak has termed it a “typical colonial act against an oppressed people.” Some others in KP have articulated similar sentiments. The ban can only anger and alienate the Pashtun people, leading to unpleasant consequences.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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