EDITORIAL: Days after the deadly bus attack in Chilas, and after 17 reported arrests, why is the government still clueless about the motive behind the shooting that killed 10 and left more than two dozen people injured; or even who carried it out? TTP has denied responsibility, and even though its claims often need to be taken with a pinch of salt, authorities would’ve considered that its lies are more often than not about taking credit for hits it doesn’t carry out, to boost its profile, instead of denying knowledge of or participation in attacks it does conduct.

That would indicate, just as locals suspect, that this was a continuation of sectarian attacks that have plagued the region for the last few years, especially since last summer.

That, in turn, would mean that the government’s efforts to stitch together a peacemaking Shi’a-Sunni clerics’ team are not exactly delivering results. This is bad news for a number of reasons.

One, fear pervades the region, with people holding their breath for what will surely follow. Any region that becomes familiar with sectarian killings knows how and why they are always followed by reprisal assassinations. And putting more people in early graves is the last thing anybody wants in beautiful Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B).

Two, once again traffic on the Karakoram Highway (KKH) has dropped to a trickle. That means less people and goods moving in and out of the area, which affects trade, commerce, and people’s livelihoods in an already very trying economic situation.

The government believed – falsely, it turned out – that moving people in convoys would reduce attacks. Now it will need a new strategy that will require beefing up security and further slowing traffic in the area.

And three, these attacks give the kiss of death to the government’s efforts to promote tourism in G-B. So that’s one more area where hopes of relieving some pressure on the exchequer have been crushed.

All this is happening just because the government is still struggling to keep a lid on sectarian tensions that have now persistently dogged the country for at least the good part of four decades.

Treating this incident as specific to G-B would be a mistake. This is just one more part of the country where the same old problem has flared up over the last few years.

This issue requires a comprehensive approach. And the very fact that such attacks continue to take place proves that the state’s efforts to control them have singularly failed.

Yet now that security forces are gearing up to confront resurgent TTP terrorism, with the will and intention to crush it once and for all this time, perhaps some thought should go towards including homegrown sectarian terrorism into the cleansing as well.

So far, the official response has been very slow and quite disappointing. There has been the usual tough talk from the top, of course, but nothing concrete in terms of actions.

From what little has made its way to the press, it seems that the government either does not know who was behind this attack, or it is choosing not to share the information.

Neither is acceptable. The people must know what is happening, why it is happening, and what is likely to happen in the future.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023