Since Monday, several bomb attacks across the country have shattered the hopes of nation for improving security as both Isis and the Taliban claimed recent atrocities. Thursday’s terror attack, only two days after Lahore and Quetta’s bomb blasts was the country’s deadliest in years that stunned the nation. A suicide bomber detonated the bomb among crowds gathered on the busiest day of the week for the Dhamaal ritual at the shrine to Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan, a town in the southern Sindh province. At least 88 people have died and above 300 people are reported injured, including women and children.
The image of Pakistan as a safe and peaceful country has been blown into a bloody tapestry on walls, by roadsides, schools and at public gatherings across the land. The high death toll in Thursday’s bombing makes it one of the worst attacks in the country in recent years. The main question that pops in the head of every Pakistani is: till when will we have to bear these terrifying bomb blasts around the country? We are being trifled with time and again our politicians tell us that this would be the last time such a thing would happen, but the ‘last time’ never comes. They make promises, giving statements to fight with terrorism and to stand united in this struggle for the Pakistani identity, and universal humanity. As we face massacre after massacre, we know that all these reassurances are false. Every time a little hope flickers inside each of us, it is immediately extinguished by another blast. The counter-terror authorities should take charge all over the country and wipe every single terrorist out of this country. Each drop of the nation’s blood shall be avenged and avenged immediately. No more restraint for anyone.
Sana Ali Bhutto
Karachi