The elections must go on, and so must the investigation and efforts for his recovery
It seems the country’s seemingly divided voters, the rightists and the leftists, are being affected by the extremists, but in an entirely different manner. While the leftists have been threatened, and actually attacked many times, on continuing their political activities, the militants took no such action against the rightists, except for an attack or two on the JUI-F rallies. With three of relatively secular, centre-left parties under consistent attacks from the terrorists, who are targeting them specifically for having liberal ideology, the election pitch was already queered to one side. The threat of terrorism and the threat of losing either their leaders or political workers have kept these parties, the PPP, ANP and MQM, indoors with their political campaigns being almost non-existent, thus giving an undue advantage to the centre, centre-right and right parties in the election campaign. The situation has, however, taken an ugly turn, one that the liberal parties feared and the one that could throw the elections on a rocky road.
Ali Haider Gilani, son of former Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, was attacked and kidnapped in Multan yesterday while he was going to attend a rally as part of his campaign for PP-200 on a PPP ticket. As the reports say, two gunmen opened fire, killing his driver and personal secretary and probably injuring him, as the eyewitnesses have said. They then proceeded to kidnap him and fled the scene. If that is really how the events unfurled, there are a number of questions that need answers. Why did the city administration not provide security when they knew that high profile candidates were an obvious target of such heinous activities? Law and order is the responsibility of the provincial government and with the militants having made their intentions known, why did the government not take any measures in providing security to the candidates of the parties that were on the top of terrorists’ hit list? Political campaigning is as much their right as is it of the parties that the terrorists are sympathetic to. The failure to provide a safe environment to the candidates, whatever ideology they belong to, is a combined failure of the law enforcement agencies, government and the ECP.
Religious intolerance is rapidly making inroads into the country’s social and political ethos. If this took hold of the situation, it would work faster than a catalyst in bringing down what the society has so far achieved in almost all aspects. Gilanis are an influential family in Multan, and their plight is understandable when one reads about their reaction – “there would be no elections in Multan if young Gilani is not recovered” – but that is a path no one should go down on. Now is the time to be even more careful and responsible, not to make a volatile situation even worse. On their part, the police and other law enforcement agencies must take immediate action to recover young Gilani, for his injury could make things worse with every passing minute.
