Mourning death

Once more, we have heard the customary words of condemnation from leaders; again we have read reports of how police had received warnings of attacks on processions taken out to mark the Chehlum of Hazrat Imam Hussain. But this does not change the fact that more people have been killed by suicide bombers in both Lahore and Karachi and that the minority Shia sect has again been targeted. Things can simply not be allowed to continue along this path. We already have a badly damaged society. There are wounds across its body that continue to fester and bleed. We wonder how much more injury it can sustain before it is destroyed forever.

Police argue, with some degree of accuracy, that it is extremely difficult to stop suicide attacks. The bomber who struck a police cordon guarding the route of the main Shia procession in Lahore and the one who rammed his motorcycle into a police van in Karachi, both fall in this category. Three policemen were among the 13 killed in Lahore; four others — alongside the bomber — died in Karachi. But while it is true that stopping determined bombers is hard, the fact is almost all of us know who the forces behind these attacks are. Why, we must ask, has more not been done to disband the extremist forces that operate across the country? We can only assume their links with powerful groups which see them as a ‘strategic’ weapon is a factor in this. Apparently this ‘strategy’ is more important than the lives of citizens who perish and die each time a bomber detonates his vest.

The time has come to decide, once and for all, if we wish to save our country, or not. Already distrust and increased disquiet among minority groups is eating away at its soul. What we have left is a hollow shell, which can be filled with life again only if there is an end to the tactics that have allowed sectarian organisations to continue to operate, nurtured by support from organisations such as the Taliban who have done so much to fill the air we breathe with hatred.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2011.