K-P lost the most number of lawmakers to terrorism in four years

Many members escaped attacks; lawmakers infuriated at persistent trend.

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly lost four of its members, including a senior minister, to terrorism during these four and a half years – the highest for a house of elected representatives in Pakistan in this government’s tenure.

Lawmakers expressed their disappointment over this trend during the assembly’s final session on Monday just days after the assassination of Senior Minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour in a suicide attack on December 22.

Bilour was the senior most member of the incumbent assembly and was one who had survived two earlier attempts as well. On November 11, 2008, Bilour was targeted by a suicide bomber at the gate of Qayyum Stadium Sports Complex. Another attempt was made on March 11, 2009 but he emerged unscathed both times.

The Awami National Party (ANP) leader was not as lucky the third time, however, when the party’s rally at Qissa Khwani Bazaar was targeted.

Alamzeb Khan, an ANP lawmaker from Peshawar, was the first victim of militancy. He was killed in a bomb attack on February 10, 2009, in the Dalazak Road area of Peshawar. Another ANP lawmaker, Dr Shamsher Ali Khan from Swat, was also killed when a suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body in Khan’s hujra on December 1, 2009. Legislator Mohammad Ali Khan was seriously injured in March. His struggled with his injuries persisted and he succumbed to them by November.

ANP MPA Saqibullah Chamkani brought this up in the house. “Is this assembly the center of power? No! If it had been then its members would not have been killed like this,” he asked. “We only gather, pass resolutions and remember our fellow members when they are killed.”

Pakistan Peoples Party minister Liaqat Shahbab was also angry at the trend. “We should not just sit and condemn the death of our fellows but take action against it,” he added.

In addition to the loss of four members, MPAs have had to contend with a running threat. The most recent person to survive a suicide attack was Qaumi Watan Party chief Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao who was targeted by a bomber during a march in Kangra area of Shabqadar tehsil of his native Charsadda district earlier in March. The former interior minister and his son Sikandar Sherpao, who is a member of the assembly, had a narrow escape.

Minister for Prisons Mian Nisar Gul Kakakhel was injured when his convoy was attacked in the semi-tribal Darra Adamkhel, south of the provincial capital. Nisar suffered bullet wounds and three of his guards were killed on June 11, 2009.

Indeed, this house of elected representatives has also lost the greatest number of members, 12 in total, to natural and unnatural deaths.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2012.