Spreading darkness

The ease with which militants were able to close down schools in Panjgur raises questions of impunity and complicity.

The targeting of education in Balochistan’s Panjgur area by Tanzeem-ul-Islam-ul-Furqan (TIF) is most worrying. The militant outfit regard education of girls as not sanctioned by religion and has accordingly forced all schools in the district that are co-educational to shut down. It has also closed down all privately-run centres in the area that were teaching English to local youth. This has been a concerted and sustained campaign by TIF, with threats issued by mobile phone and school vans burned. The group appears to operate with impunity, and the assertion by local law enforcers that they are close to arresting its members, holds little water. As usual we see the state completely abdicating whatever authority that it has left.

The threats appear to have started on April 25 and within 18 days, TIF had forced the closure of up to 23 private institutions. Nobody seems to be in any doubt that they will kill to get what they want, and what they want is a return to the Dark Ages, a time of primitivism. The members of TIF appear to be local to the Panjgur area as the names of educationalists are known to them, and they are outside the mainstream in that local clerics have said they have no objection to either English language teaching or co-education. The authorities are slow to react, dithering and weak and the extremists have quickly gained the upper hand. Education in Panjgur has been forced out of business and we wonder how long it will be before government schools become the target. The ease with which TIF was able to pull down the shutters on education also raises questions of impunity and complicity. Its members are not strangers, foreigners; they were born and live in the area. That being so, why they are not yet in custody suggests extremist sympathies in the police. The situation must be looked into and this rising trend reversed to check the extremism and salvage what education we have.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 20^th, 2014.

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