Ziarat and Quetta; National Calamity Brushed Down the Rug

Multiple attacks, shaking Balochistan, from Quetta to Ziarat about 150 km apart, with the Quaid’s residency burnt into ashes; a whole bus of lady doctors blasted, leaving 14 dead and all others critically injured; 5 officials and 4 nurses killed; and a whole day of hostage situation and gun-battle; hurt, pain, distress, helplessness and insult. What do all these do to the collective conscience of a people and how does a sovereign government react to such a breach in the peace, security and pride of its people.

Those with a better memory would not have forgotten how India had reacted on its Mumbai Attacks drama, when multiple attacks had been carried out in the same way. And India remembers and mourns the event to this day, holding Pakistan responsible for the heinous crime, even so without proof, and maligning Pakistan’s repute on all possible international fronts for the event, to this day.

Again, people might not have forgotten the more recent events of the Boston Bombings, where 2 pressure cookers had exploded and 3 had died, and it was declared ‘an act of terrorism’ against the ‘people’ of America; mourning  was observed throughout the country for several days and solidarity was shown across the Atlantic, with a symbolic marathon held in Britain. Even before any decisive investigation had come to the surface, the mainstream media was flooded with terms like ‘Jehadist’, ‘AlQaeda’, ‘Muslim Terrorist’, and so on.

In a strike contrast, the Federal Minister of Information, Pervaiz Rasheed, told the nation that “no foreigners were involved in the incident, and own people are killing own people”; and answering a question about BLA’s hoisting its flag on the ashes of the Quaid’s Residency, he said, “we are going to capture the people doing the act not the flag…’

Was the Minister’s statement a logical one? Are there no foreign hands involved in terror attacks throughout the country; when several times, the previous Interior Minister has acknowledged and warned of networks of foreign involvement, with documented proofs from our intelligence agencies? Was the Minister not informed about the call intercepted by the Intelligence Agency, during the Bolan Medical Complex operation, wherein a conversation holding instructions for the attack were recorded, and the call was made from Afghanistan?

And is it not absurdly childish for a Federal Minister to say that his government will go after the individuals who attacked and not the flag, meaning that they will not attempt to reach the bases or the people really behind these attacks, giving them a free ticket to play havoc with the nation?

No doubt, Pakistanis are a decent people and would not like to resort to the blame-game, as does India in all of its burning issues – may they be the Maoists attacks, the Sikh Militancy, the Kashmir Insurgencies, the Naxals, you name it; anything except their rapes – one thing they are willing to own. And they would deny any involvement of their own, whatsoever, even in something as blunt as the incursions of the IAF into our air-zone.

While our Federal Minister and the Nawaz government play the flute of cowardice and aloofness, numbing down the collective conscience of the nation into an acceptance for terrorism as the ‘way of life’ for us, educating the nation to shun away, from their memory, the presence of ‘real and present danger’ as a conspiracy theory; the reality still remains in front of us, in the form of BLA, TTP, LeJ and the likes.

Perhaps the Nawaz League’s craving to befriend India and their Western mentors, upon whose laps they had signed the ‘Charter of Democracy’ several years ago, will prefer to blind their eyes to the reality that BLA is based in and funded by Britain, and that the TTP has its command and control right across the border line, where dwell the innumerous Indian embassies, under NATO protection.

Is our government unaware of the very recent development, within this week, where TTP said that Afghan Taliban and LeT are gathering against them? Do we not know that as the approach of 2014 nears us, all terror outfits working against our nation, knowing that they would be breathing their last breaths, as their creators and sustainers are packing their bags, will be ready to do any amount of brutality, to be receiving their last paychecks with better amounts? And is it a rocket science, that those who have being playing havoc with us for the last 10 years and from even much earlier, will prefer to empty all their bullets upon us before they dump the situation?

And let us not take the incident of a female suicide-attacker, in the blast of the bus carrying the lady-doctors, as of no importance. The female attacker symbolizes the ‘Takfeeri ideology’, which is preached in the TTP camps, whereby they are accustomed to declare all Muslims as infidels (kafirs), thereby making the killing of men, women and children, an act of ‘purity’; a criminal brainwash that enables them to ground out hypnotized suicide-attackers.

The nation must understand that Balochistan has not been hit by ‘individuals’ or ‘own people’; it has been a nexus of the BLA, the LeJ and the TTP, a nexus that bounds two superpowers and a regional power behind the curtain – a curtain the Nawaz government may not be willing to pull down. Perhaps the government is thinking of letting the people of the country take the blow of ‘intensified attacks’ perceived in the 2014 scenario, and keep taming the collective conscience of the nation with its flute.

Yesterday, the BLA claimed the attacks on Ziarat and later in the day, LeJ claimed the attacks on the BMC. PKKH does not preach the philosophy of despair, blame or unprovable stubborn conspiracy; but PKKH also does not preach cowardice and ignorance to clear factual evidence either. We urge the nation to unite against the enemies, at least in their conscience, and we urge the government to be vocal about the realities, and to declare the Balochistan tragedies as national mournings, not just for a day, but for as long as the memory works.