Frightening facts

We will need to find a way to wipe sectarian intolerance away and that, of course, is not going to be a simple task.

We all know our country is caught up in a war-like situation, where death seems to hang around every street corner. But when the actual figures are put forward we realise just how grim things really are. The interior ministry, in response to a question, has informed the Senate that 2,090 lives had been lost to sectarian violence from January 2008 to January 2014. No province, no territory has been spared.

The Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where sectarian outfits have aligned themselves with other militant forces, saw 867 killings during this period. Around 737 took place in Balochistan where the Shia Hazara community has been repeatedly hit. Around 252 were killed in Sindh in targeted attacks on professionals and attacks on processions — 104 in Punjab, 103 in Gilgit-Baltistan and 22 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Nowhere, then, are sectarian minorities safe and the problem seems to be growing worse with the passage of years, as hatred based on belief seeps deeper and deeper into the pores of our society. We will need to find a way to wipe this intolerance away and that, of course, is not going to be a simple task. We have waited far too long and the stain has spread.

It is also an ominous sign that the minister of state for interior, who represented his ministry before the Senate, declined to answer a question on how many had been convicted for these attacks. From this, and from the other evidence before us, we can deduce the number is not high at all. This, of course, is one reason why the killing spree does not end, why more and more are mowed down in this fashion. The statistics laid out before the Upper House reveal just how grim the situation is. The challenge before us has to be to come up with a strategy to reduce the violence and create an environment which allows people to live more harmoniously together while respecting beliefs that may differ from their own.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2014.

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