One down, many to go

Pakistan as a whole has to take on the spectre of sectarianism not only with guns but in school classroom, in madrassa

The reported death of a senior commander of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), a banned sectarian militant group, is much to be welcomed. The only reservation we have is that his death takes him out of the judicial process. Usman Saifullah Kurd died in an exchange of fire with paramilitary forces in the Sariab Road area of Quetta on February 15. He had been condemned to death by an anti-terrorism court in 2003 after being convicted in connection with two attacks of a sectarian nature that killed dozens of people besides injuring many more.



Kurd’s escape from the high-security Quetta cantonment jail in 2008 was suspicious. He had managed to escape along with two other convicts. The jail administration had removed their Hazara guards and changed the roster abruptly, indicating that there may have been support for the convicted men and their cause at the highest level within the jail, if not the provincial administration. Kurd had been suspected of being involved in various terror attacks ever since.

Kurd was believed to be the LeJ operational commander in Balochistan and there was a bounty of Rs2.5 million on his head — which may in the end have been his undoing as it is reported that ‘a tip-off’ drew the paramilitary forces to the compound where he was. Brutal and bloody was his end, and there will be carping that he should have been arrested rather than killed, but the harsh reality is that the war against terrorism — and indeed sectarianism — is sometimes fought hand-to-hand in the closest of quarters. And there can be no let-up if it is to be won. The LeJ and other similar organisations must not only be degraded in terms of their efficacy to mount operations, but fought to a clear and decisive defeat. A defeat that will not only be military as this is a fight as much of ideas as it is a clash of arms. Pakistan as a whole has to take on the spectre of sectarianism, not only with guns and bombs and police encounters, but in the school classroom, in the madrassa and across media platforms of all types. It is going to be a long hard war.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 17^th,  2015.

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