Kohistan tragedy — questions

Letter March 05, 2012
The area where the incident happened has seen sectarian violence before as well, and is a hotbed of extremism.

KARACHI: With regard to the tragic gunning down of almost 20 Shia passengers on a bus in Kohistan on its way to Gilgit-Baltistan, one needs to ask the government certain questions. How could the attackers escape from the place of the incident given that the Karakoram Highway is dotted with FC and military checkposts? The area where the incident happened has seen sectarian violence before as well, and is a hotbed of extremism. However, it is also very sparsely populated so it shouldn’t be all that difficult to narrow down the suspects. What progress have the police and other law-enforcement agencies investigating the tragedy made so far? Surely, this qualifies as a clear intelligence failure because the attackers, it seems, had enough time to stop the buses and sift the passengers and take them along the roadside and gun them down.

Ali Osman

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6th, 2012.