Peshawar blast

56 people were killed and close to 200 injured in a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque during Friday prayers

Terrorists have shifted focus – from Balochistan to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. And it’s not any locality on the fringes that has come under a terrorist attack, a major one; but Peshawar, the capital city, that has been the scene of bloodshed and mayhem. At least 56 people were killed and close to 200 injured in a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Kocha Risaldar where worshipers had gathered for Friday prayers. The suicide attacker, brandishing a pistol, made his way into the mosque opening fire on the policemen deputed for mosque security, killing one of them. There have been incidents of killings and blasts in Peshawar and other parts of K-P, but one with such a huge scale had not occurred since the July 2018 suicide attack on an election rally in which 19 lives, including that of ANP leader Haroon Bilour, had been lost.

The Kocha Risaldar suicide blast coincided with the start of a historic cricket series against Australia which had set foot in Pakistan after almost quarter of a century. The first encounter of the three-Test series between the two countries began in Rawalpindi, just an hour and a half drive from Peshawar, the scene of the blast. An earlier attempt by inimical forces to derail the landmark cricket series had failed to achieve the nefarious target: an online threat to the life of a visiting cricketer was considered as no risk after being investigated by Australian cricket board. The Instagram account, on which the threat was post, was found out to be fake and potentially from India.

The blast comes at a time of political chaos in the country when wheeling and dealing to oust the prime minister through a no-trust vote is in full swing and an anti-government long march is also headed for the federal capital. With the government preoccupied with ways and means to thwart the opposition’s bid to send the PM packing, what better time could have been for anti-state elements to further their toxic agenda of spreading chaos in the country by exploiting the sectarian fault lines. The blast is indeed part of a “larger conspiracy”, as remarked by the federal information minister, hatched in the neighbourhood. The “return of the smell of explosives” – to quote PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz – must worry the relevant authorities.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2022.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.