Suddenly the security situation, not to mention the weather, was permitting enough for the army chief and Imran Khan, at least, to visit Parachinar (till the time of writing, Friday). Perhaps if popular media had turned to the dharna earlier – alongside parading cricket stars re-re-living the Champions Trophy victory on Eid shows, and boys beehiving to beauty salons for facials and pedicures – those poor mourners would not have had to protest so long. So, finally, not only will relatives of the dead Parachinar Shi’a be compensated along the same lines as other, normal Pakistanis, there’s also word of ‘additional army contingents’ in the long troubled tribal area.
Why some of these measures, especially increased security, could not be taken earlier has, of course, been left for another day. Kurram Agency has been home to sectarian, predominantly Shi’a, killings since the days of the so called anti-Soviet jihad. Its Parrot’s Beak incursion into Afghan territory made it the ideal infiltration point for the mujahideen of the good war. But since most of the holy warriors then, as now, prescribed to the Saudi sponsored Wahhabi/Salafi school of thought, there was violence aplenty, to say the least. Since that jihad the job of killing the Shi’a was taken up by local lashkars and jaishes littered across the Sindh/Punjab border, but that stopped being breaking news more than a decade ago.
The stubbornness of the Parachinari elders may have forced the army into committing forces – though such a move should have come years ago – and even squeezed ‘normal’ compensation from the government, but does that mean they’ll get to stop burying their children anytime soon? A government aware of the magnitude of the crisis would, in addition to committing more military, have already begun an aggressive education campaign; one meant to deliberately counter the regressive narrative of the last two decades. There’s a reason somebody put counter-narrative in the National Action Plan. But since our leaders won’t even really recognise the sectarian nature of the problem – and, worse, choose to stay away where minorities are killed – their priority seems a quick fix before the headlines get any worse. The government, thanks largely, again, to the military, may have saved some face, but it hasn’t saved the future of Pakistani minorities just yet.
