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| Rocket Attack on Hazara Pilgrims' Bus from an Artist's Perspective |
Faisal Farooq
The gruesome incident in which a bus of Shia pilgrims was attacked in Quetta coupled with numerous others in Balochistan over the past few months is part of baleful conspiracy to divide the country vertically and horizontally.
More than dozen people, who were returning from Iran, were lost their lives while another 30 sustained severe injuries when their bus was attacked in the outskirts of provincial metropolis.
If we focus on the pattern of attacks, the incompetency of the provincial government and law enforcement agencies to protect the community becomes the foremost reason of the dreadful incident.
This community mainly targeted along the set routes that buses take when transporting pilgrims to and from Iran, the neighboring Shia-dominated country.
Although law enforcement agencies increased security along these routes, they will have to develop a proper setup to monitor and identify suspicious activities in the future.
The police escorts which accompany pilgrims in these journeys are adequate at all. Local politicians of the province have been provided extensive and expensive security arrangements, but why not proper security and protection is being given to Hazara community.
Rather making efforts to prevent already planned attacks at the eleventh hour, the more effective way to tackle the issue is chasing the militants and dismantling their infrastructure.
The anti-Shia militancy in the province has modified itself into a force having its own motivations, operational bases and centers of propaganda and misinformation.
The law enforcement agencies have identified the locations of seminaries involved in propagating anti-Shia views. They also found some bases of the Lahskar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) who train militants and terrorists for such attacks.
Despite having information about the attacks and those behind them in the face of such a predictable pattern, the failure to prevent them has only intensified speculation that law enforcement agencies are deliberately not taking action against secretarial violence.
Such theories reflect mistrust among the stakeholders in the province, which is seen as being focused on cracking down against separatist forces.
The continued attacks on the Hazara community are increasingly becoming a massive abdication of responsibility on part of the state whatever it is thinking.
The gruesome incident in which a bus of Shia pilgrims was attacked in Quetta coupled with numerous others in Balochistan over the past few months is part of baleful conspiracy to divide the country vertically and horizontally.
More than dozen people, who were returning from Iran, were lost their lives while another 30 sustained severe injuries when their bus was attacked in the outskirts of provincial metropolis.
If we focus on the pattern of attacks, the incompetency of the provincial government and law enforcement agencies to protect the community becomes the foremost reason of the dreadful incident.
This community mainly targeted along the set routes that buses take when transporting pilgrims to and from Iran, the neighboring Shia-dominated country.
Although law enforcement agencies increased security along these routes, they will have to develop a proper setup to monitor and identify suspicious activities in the future.
The police escorts which accompany pilgrims in these journeys are adequate at all. Local politicians of the province have been provided extensive and expensive security arrangements, but why not proper security and protection is being given to Hazara community.
Rather making efforts to prevent already planned attacks at the eleventh hour, the more effective way to tackle the issue is chasing the militants and dismantling their infrastructure.
The anti-Shia militancy in the province has modified itself into a force having its own motivations, operational bases and centers of propaganda and misinformation.
The law enforcement agencies have identified the locations of seminaries involved in propagating anti-Shia views. They also found some bases of the Lahskar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) who train militants and terrorists for such attacks.
Despite having information about the attacks and those behind them in the face of such a predictable pattern, the failure to prevent them has only intensified speculation that law enforcement agencies are deliberately not taking action against secretarial violence.
Such theories reflect mistrust among the stakeholders in the province, which is seen as being focused on cracking down against separatist forces.
The continued attacks on the Hazara community are increasingly becoming a massive abdication of responsibility on part of the state whatever it is thinking.
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