Nine people from Punjab were killed near Noshki, Balochistan in the early hours of yesterday, when gunmen forced them off a bus they were travelling in and shot them, officials said. Another attack on a separate vehicle killed two people. According to media reports, the gunmen checked the identity cards of passengers from a Taftan-bound bus and kidnapped them before they were shot dead, and the bodies of the victims were found under a bridge nearby after an hour and a half. This is inhuman, to say the least. The incident fully exposes, among other things, the inability of our provincial government in particular to deal with the terrorists with an iron hand.

In his response, Balochistan chief minister Mir Sarfraz Bugti has vowed that terrorists would be dealt with “an iron hand”. But the question is when the government would exercise its power against terrorists in an oppressive and ruthless way. Mir Bugti has previously served the country as its interior minister in the interim government led by Anwaarul Haq Kakar. He’s now province’s chief executive; he is in fact one of the most powerful chief ministers since the province had its first chief minister, the late Sardar Ataullah Mengal, in 1972. In my view, therefore, he’s the one who can bring about a discernable change insofar as law and order in the country’s most backward province is concerned. Moreover, he will be required to work harder than any chief minister in the country, given his province borders both Afghanistan and Iran. Needless to say, tensions are rising in the region amid expectations of retaliation by Iran against Israel.

Sulaiman Khan Marri

Quetta

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024