No credible move to check sectarian killings
The Quetta killings could have been averted if the operation clean-up had been undertaken after the last month’s massacre. Lashkre-e-Jhangvi (JeJ), which has accepted the responsibility for the gruesome act, has previously owned several attacks of the sort on the Hazaras and the Shia community in general – including the January massacre in Quetta. Numerous security agencies – in fact too many to count on the fingers of one hand, with indeed an army of operators – have remained deployed in Quetta for the last several years. The FC has a prominent presence all over the city – and has practically been running the province. These guys must have some eyes and ears in the streets and bazaars. They must have been snooping around. Yet the LeJ first procured 800-1,000kg of explosives – not exactly a needle in a haystack. Then it stockpiled it at a safe house where it was stashed inside a government-owned water tanker that was subsequently taken to the crowded Kirani Road and exploded to such devastating effect. All this without the security agencies getting a whiff of it in a city that is not neither well-spread or densely populated in comparison to the bigger metropolises of the country raises a number of questions – both of competence and intent, and quite possibly of collusion.
The law enforcement agencies are either scared of the militants or clueless – as Governor Magsi has quite candidly said in his in-your-face statement. That Badini, the mastermind of several killings including the recent massacres, had earlier managed to escape from a high-security detention centre inside the Quetta cantonment with such consummate ease pointed to inside help. Whichever way one looks at it, all these factors are indicative of a state of wanton neglect on the part of those entrusted to safeguard the lives of the people in Quetta.
It is not clear which agency of the state has been ordered to conduct the operation by the prime minister. Few in the province or outside have any trust in the FC because the massacre, like the one in January, took place under its close watch. By now the FC is widely seen to be incapable of conducting any meaningful operation. The demand to hand over Quetta to the army raised by the Hazara leaders is therefore now being supported by Imran Khan and the MQM as well. The removal of the IGP may be understandable but sparing the IG FC is not. There is a perception that the claims with regards the arrest of the yet-to-be-identified terror mastermind are routine announcements meant to calm the tempers down for the time being; ditto for the visit by a group of federal ministers to Quetta.
The targeted killing of a Shia doctor and his son on a busy road in Lahore is yet another warning that unless urgently checked, the sectarian terrorism could engulf the entire country. The protests against the killings have spread across Pakistan. Karachi came to a virtual halt on Monday as public transport workers and traders stopped work. Several political and religious parties have condemned the killings. Parliament has mourned the massacre. The Supreme Court has summoned the interior and federal secretaries. There is, however, no credible move yet to put an end to the sectarian killings.
