![the reach of violence the reach of violence](https://i1.tribune.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/451482-talibanmilitantcopy-1350245594.jpg)
The injured students were taken to the Agency Headquarters Hospital in Parachinar. One of the victims had suffered a bullet wound and was admitted to the hospital in a precarious condition. This is the latest in a succession of sectarian attacks. Earlier this week, three Shias were injured when militants opened fire on a passenger vehicle in Lower Kurram Agency. There have been other targeted attacks before in the same area. The spread of sectarianism in Kurram Agency has been increasing for years. This influence has grown as extremist forces pursuing a sectarian agenda have increased in the area, using the years-old sectarian tensions present in the area to their advantage by pitching tribes against each other.
Brief periods of calm have not lasted beyond weeks or months. The situation is alarming. No easy solutions are in sight and there is the lingering suspicion that there is a lack of sufficient will to solve the problem. Until some resolution is found, tensions will grow and the risk of other attacks will remain in place, claiming more lives in a scenario where too many have been lost already. Somehow, we need to devise a strategy to tackle sectarianism wherever it exists. It is true that different factors exist in different places, but the root cause is the growth of hatred, of intolerance and the role of various agents in this. The problem needs to be assessed and measures have to be taken to ensure that the state mechanism resumes its capacity to maintain law and order in the face of this capacity having totally collapsed with no writ of the state prevailing.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 15th, 2012.
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If we have to get rid of this menace current ruling elites with their touts in media have to go and be replaced by people who believe in Jinah's Pakistan and not Iqbal's Pakistan.Ghairat brigade should be brought to justice and place behind bars for unleashing mayhem whenever and wherever required.The current set-up has divided the nation, never to reach consences on fighting terrorism, that has left no place or no segment of society unaffected.This system has to collapse by it's own.Let us wait how long it takes more lives and how much more damage done.