23 October 2014

23 October 2014 was among one of those bloodiest days Quetta has seen in recent years. It was an ordinary day until the incidents that happen during the day made it extraordinary.

The incidents that happened during the day were multi-oriented, the first incident in the row that happened in morning was case of sectarian killing, when innocent fruit merchants of Hazzara town were killed in firing on the bus they were traveling in, one of many cases that take place on regular basis now.

The second incident was attack on the FC patrolling vehicle on Qambarani road, which took at least 2 lives.

The third incident was the one felt more deeply across the country, attack on the Key Religious Political Leader Moulana Fazal Rehman of JUI-F, just after their gathering in Quetta city. This attack was suicidal, and claimed 2 lives including attacker.

One may think that these attacks are common now, but I think that these attacks are interlinked in some ways. The sectarian killing has terrible history, whether that is killing of Shiites or Sunnis. The attack on law enforcement agencies can be termed as reaction of operations against militants or so called freedom fighters of Baluchistan. Attack on the Hazzara people and Religious Political Leader and those who claimed responsibility of attacks are linked with TTP (Tehreek Taliban Pakistan). Moulana and his party has always supported and in some ways sponsored the Taliban movement in Afghanistan but the interesting thing is that their counterpart in Pakistan has started targeting Moulana and their Party's Leaders, for their different stance on Jihad in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Religious Political leader Moulana Fazal Rehman.

This is not a pleasant situation but someone has to pay the price of that bloodshed that occurred in Afghanistan and Pakistan for decades, but why Moulana? I think the religious political parties have to pay this price, because they remained ally of Pakistan Army and Establishment in their bloody war against Afghanistan. The sectarian divides are also due to these religious political parties back in Zia-ul-Haq era, by leveling ground for Zia ul Haq’s radical steps.