Repercussions of Peshawar attacks

Tragedy too big to be explained away

The toll in hospitals continues to rise as overworked doctors fail to save several who were seriously injured in Sunday’s attack inside All Saint’s Church in Peshawar. By Monday morning the number of dead had crossed 80, making it one of the biggest carnages at the hands of the extremist militants in Pakistan. The tragedy is too big to be explained away through traditional hints of conspiracy that a section of politicians have resorted to in the past to divert the attention from the real culprits. People are fed up with finding scapegoats like Black Water, foreign agents, hidden hands or, as is being suggested now, those opposed to the dialogue with the Pakistani militants. On Sunday Imran Khan too mused why attacks like the strike on the Peshawar Church take place especially at a time when preparations are afoot to initiate peace talks. Innuendos of the sort cannot reduce the enormity of the tragedy nor provide a cover up to the perpetrators some politicians prefer not to name but who are rightly identified by most Pakistanis. The common people in KP have reacted strongly to the killings. The bad performance of the PTI in providing relief to the injured is likely to bring down its rating in the province.

Coming at as it does within days of the killings in Dir, duly owned by the TTP, the consensus reached at the APC is all but unraveled. As Nawaz Sharif conceded at London airport, such incidents do not augur well for negotiations. “Unfortunately, because of this, the government is unable to move forward on what it had envisaged, on what it had wished for.” Another major incident of the sort and the pressure on the government and the armed forces to take out terrorists of all hues and colours would become unbearable. Politicians who continue to cover up the misdeeds of the terrorists would be totally isolated.

Foreign media has highlighted the terrorist attack on a peaceful community. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has strongly condemned the atrocious attack while Pope Francis has observed that “because of a bad choice of hatred and war, more than 70 people are dead. This path is not the right one, it leads nowhere.” Mian Nawaz Sharif who has reached New York is likely to be asked uneasy questions from those he is scheduled to meet including administration officials, media persons and the leaders of Pakistani community in the US. It would be an arduous task to defend the position that the government is fighting terrorism and to present himself as a leader of a responsible democratic nation, in view of the way the members of the minority sects and religions continue to be targeted in Pakistan. By the time he returns he is likely to have got an earful.