After an attempt on Hamid Mir,TTP’s intentions are clear
Earlier, journalists were killed only in the tribal areas where 12 of them lost their lives after 9/11. Now the media persons are being targeted even in Islamabad. This makes one wonder if the government and the security agencies are really functional. On Monday, senior Geo TV anchor Hamid Mir escaped an assassination attempt when his driver made a timely discovery of a bomb planted under his car. TTP spoksman Ehsanullah Ehsan subsequently accepted responsibility for the act and reiterated the TTP’s resolve to eliminate Mir. He threatened that any journalist found working against the interests of the Muslims and mujahideen and supporting the West through his journalistic activity had no right to live. This raises a number of questions. Who is to decide who is working against the interests of the Muslim community? Many respected religious figures in the Muslim world consider militants who attack Muslims as the enemies of Islam. If Muslim community is to be saved from bloody and divisive internal conflicts, no single individual, sect or group of people, should take it upon itself to declare any one as the enemy of Islam fit for execution. The constitution has laid down that no one in Pakistan can be deprived of life except in accordance with law. The provision needs to be enforced in letter and spirit.
As many as eight officials connected with the Gomal Zam Dam were kidnapped while on their way for Eid holidays. They are in the custody of the TTP which has threatened to kill them by 3 December if its unspecified demands are not met. Their lives hang by a thread as one of them revealed in a videotape made public by the TTP. One can imagine the suffering of their families. Earlier, foreigners working on development projects were kidnapped and killed, including a Chinese and a Polish engineer. The incidents raise questions about the capacity of the government and the costly machinery at its disposal to protect the people.
Attempts have been made in the past to explain away suicide attacks, kidnappings and killings through frivolous explanations by the sympathisers of the militants. They maintained that these crimes were committed not by the militants but by unnamed countries which were keen to destabilise Pakistan. Another variety of TTP’s apologists would hold Blackwater responsible for every crime of the sort. The patriotic credentials of anyone who questioned the claim were considered doubtful. There should be no doubt about the identity or the intentions of the TTP now. It is time functionaries of the state and government who have taken solemn oaths to defend the people fulfilled their constitutional duties. Unless they do so, the state would be considered dysfunctional.
