The Quetta blast has shattered our society’s most vocal segment
Balochistan is on fire for a very long time. It would be silly of us to deny presence of an ever-present and expanding separatist movement in the province
‘My uncles, friends and cousins could have been amongst the dead if the attack happened in a different provincial capital’, this thought causes goose bumps every time I think of an entire generation of lawyers who perished in Quetta’s bomb blast.
The horror took place when dozens of black coats went to a government hospital in Quetta on hearing about an assassination attempt on a colleague, unmindful that the incident was nothing but bait and it was they who were being led to the slaughterhouse. Taking advantage of such vast gathering of black coats, a suicide bomber detonated himself and scores of mentors, sons, friends, counsels, demonstrators, husbands, pleaders, fathers and those who pledged to stand for justice, equality and rule of law were slaughtered en masse. It has been rightly said that an entire generation of lawyers of Balochistan was ‘decimated’ within minutes. The legal profession has lost many invaluable individuals who spent lives helping wronged and abused seek solace of justice. It will take new-entrants decades to get the legal practice in Balochistan where it was on 7th of August, 2016.
After every carnage we ask the same question; who failed whom? The dilemma with this question is that everybody has a favourite ‘whom’. The liberals and nationalists say it is many ‘agencies’ that failed to do their job and thus are squarely responsible. The overly patriotic folks are of the opinion that it is ‘RAW+Mossad+Khad+CIA’ who are responsible for such activities. Or let me simplify it further, the khaki-lovers say it is conspiracy hatched and acted upon by ever-elusive foreign elements. The khaki-bashers recite a line from Yeats’ ‘The Second Coming’, after making minor amends to it; ‘Things fall apart; the ‘Aabpara’ cannot hold’.
Balochistan is on fire for a very long time. It would be silly of us to deny presence of an ever-present and expanding separatist movement in the province. An eye-opener came when last month, Mr Zahid Gishkori did a gut-wrenching story on Balochistan. According to the official documents in the past six years more than 1,000 bullet-ridden dead bodies have been recovered from the province. Majority of the mutilated corpses were ethnic Baloch, followed by Pashtuns. And we must not forget that these statistics are documented, acknowledged and owned by the government and are now in the public domain. At the expense of sounding cynical, dare I pull a Disraeli here; he said, ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics’. I won’t elaborate any further.
But all is neither bleak and dreary nor presages doom. Things have also improved for the better. The intensity and occurrence of terrorist attacks have been reduced considerably, Zarb-e-Azb has significantly improved overall security situation in the country. The Pakistan where bomb blasts became routine incidents and everyday happening is gone. Now, every time we hear about a bomb blast, our response is of astonishment and fear. We have, without doubt, shed our desensitised selves of yesteryears when nothing shocked us anymore. Every massacre registered itself only to be forgotten the next day. Team Sharif, as our PM and army chief are lovingly called, must be given credit for making us feel, behave and react like human beings again.
We wear our black coats as they symbolise our understanding of the pain, suffering and agony that brings a hapless individual to the blindfolded Lady Justice
But we should also ask; Why we didn’t pay much-needed heed to the National Action Plan before? Where was our promised cure-all shelved for one and a half years? There wasn’t much talk later about the panacea we were promised in January 2015. I guess in the wake of Quetta blast, we’ve been reminded of it as the back to back civ-military deliberations and consensus in the aftermath of Quetta attack will surely enliven the previously forgotten NAP.
Coming back to Balochistan, one Yadhav, dearest sirs and ma’ams, won’t be enough to blame for the muddle we are in. Catching a spy, holding a media briefing after it and announcing that he has admitted to have masterminded every rotten deed is good PR exercise aimed to allure the local audience who gets a confirmation of their ages old ‘world-is-against-us’ assumptions right on their beloved tellies. But is it really anything more than flaunting a prisoner as a ‘Big Catch’ while praying that it’ll attract envious glances of all ‘concerned’ enemies.
Let me recount a personal experience. I was there when a terrorist blew himself to smithereens while attacking a gathering of lawyers almost a decade back. It was one scorching evening of July, 2007. I was waiting outside my academy in main market of sector F-8, Islamabad. I was chatting with my friends when all of a sudden we heard this loud deafening blast. Immediately after it, within minutes police started closing down the area near Islamabad Katcheri, situated in the same vicinity. I and a friend rushed home on his bike. The anchor was giving details of the deadly blast aimed at lawyers and the sound I heard back there, he announced, silenced 17 lives forever. I heard the blast, I saw the light it emanated but a distance of a few hundred meters spared me the sight of gore and I fled before the screams of agony reached me.
And for those who wonder what black colour of our coats stands for. Dearest sirs and ma’ams, it stands for mourning. Lawyers don it as they mourn the lawlessness, abuse of power and injustice. We wear our black coats as they symbolise our understanding of the pain, suffering and agony that brings a hapless individual to the blindfolded Lady Justice. This independence day, let us solemnly bewail the eternal mourners. May their souls rest in peace.
