KARACHI: The Bohra community undoubtedly is the most peaceful community in Karachi. It holds no political biases neither does it support any ethnic trends. If one were to ask what this community stands for ideologically, there could only be one plausible answer: peace and harmony. Yet, it has been attacked. Why? The twin bomb blasts near a Bohra community centre may have only one explanation. Pakistan, today, has become a theatre of operations for terrorists who are not at war with an opposing idea, ideology, institution or a community, but the entire state of Pakistan.
Have the billions of dollars that we spent on procuring military hardware and developing nuclear weapons provided safety and security to our people? The elite-formulated security policies only protect the interests of the ruling elite and the institutions they represent, not the interests of the common people. For the common citizens, these policies have brought only hunger, misery, and hopelessness. There has to be a realisation that we need to shift the emphasis of our security spending on guarding against internal threats, instead of spending billions of dollars on preparing for conventional warfare. The targeting of the Bohra community should be an eye-opener for the government. The state cannot allow terrorists to target communities at will.
Lt Col (retd) Muhammad Ali Ehsan
Published in The Express Tribune, September 20th, 2012.
