Karachi Bus Attack___Can We Call It The Last Tragedy?

Sadly speaking, the Karachi bust attack, in which about 45 Ismaili Muslims were brutally martyred, was not the first massacre of its nature at all. In fact, there is a history of terrorist attacks in Pakistan in which over 50,000 thousands common people have already lost their lives. Taliban terrorist not only targeted the civilians, but also the security personnel and their military installations. Although a military operation “Zarbe Azb” is still in progress against them especially in tribal areas, it does not seem to be achieving the required targets. After Taliban and other extremist groups, even support for ISIS is also reportedly increasing in Pakistan including Karachi.

Question is, why have the Pakistani authorities still failed to eliminate the extremist groups from the country?

Recently, a summit was held in US Washington to ponder over how to eradicate the radicalization as well as its resulted terrorism in the world. Like others suggestions, the participants also recommended two very important measures to be taken for the purpose.

1- To adopt strategies in order to keep people away from being influenced by the radical groups; and,

2- To take strict actions against the extremists and remove their safe hideouts.

Unfortunately, neither of these is being implemented in Pakistan. Regarding countering the radicalization, there is a clear division in Pakistan over how to deal with the extremist groups especially including Taliban. Political parties, religious sects, anchorpersons and analysts have two different stands about this issue. 
For instance, if some people (liberals) demand to crush the extremists, the others (Taliban apologists) strongly oppose it saying, “We cannot let the Muslim army kill its own Pakistani Muslim brothers”.  Because all these are in the position of forming and molding public opinion, people of the country are divided too due to this reason. That is one of the biggest reasons why there is no such a strong and united voice against the terrorism in Pakistan (except in Karachi from MQM) as we witnessed in France, Germany, US, Jordan and Japan over the loss of relatively few human lives.

Furthermore, the Taliban-supporting banned outfits, sectarian priests and their under-controlled madaris (religious schools) are freely operating and openly justifying the extremists and their ill-deeds. ASWJ, Jamat-ud-Dawa, Lal mosque (Red Mosque)`s priest Moulana Abdul Aziz, Jamiat Uelma-e-Islam(S)`s Samiul Haq are some of the prominent examples in this respect. Even the chiefs of Jamta-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulemae Islam-F did not hesitate to term the killed Taliban terrorists as “Martyrs”. 

Just like the specific sectarian and religious groups and their leadership, some retired officers, belonging to the military establishment, still consider Taliban and other Jihadi groups as Pakistan`s “strategic assets”. In such a scenario, can we expect to stop or reduce the increasing extremism in Pakistan?

Everybody knows that the attacks at naval and air basis, GHQ, Karachi airport (KPS), Bannu Jail break, Wahga border tragedy and the presence of OBL in Abbotabad, were not possible without the assistance from inside. Considering these, would it be logical only to point out fingers towards to any anti-Pakistani forces without taking out the black sheep from within?

It is an open secret that, once again MQM is on the target of the on-going operation in Karachi. In this connection, MQM, despite being the highest vote taking political party of the city, was kept away from all high-level meetings about the Karachi operation. Even the Governor Sindh, who is a representative of the federal government, is sometimes not invited to such meetings. This is what many analysts, anchorpersons and MQM`s political rivals had been demanding arguing, “No operation can ever be successful in Karachi against the culprits unless and until their supporters are sidelined”.

Yes, it is very logical that when the state authorities (i.e., provincial and federal governments as well as the military establishment) have decided to target MQM (whether rightly or wrongly), then why to share/leak all the plans or the strategies to it? But when this logic is true and can be implemented against MQM, then how can any operation ever be successful without keeping away all the supporters and defenders of Taliban from the governments and the military establishment? Can the federal and KPK provincial governments, which were facilitated to come into power by Taliban in 2013 general elections, ever take serious actions against their facilitators (Taliban terrorists)? The way MQM is being isolated proves that the state authorities seriously want to crush MQM. But, in the presence of the Taliban-supported political governments and with the pro-Jihadi elements in the establishment, can we expect that they would launch a genuine operation against the religious and sectarian terrorists?

Now-a-days, we are witnessing a new tendency from the LEA`s and the government of naming RAW (Indian agency) behind all the crimes taking place in the country. In the hour when we need to discourage the radicalization in the country, the propagation of RAW`s alleged in Pakistan, will not only refuel the anti-India sentiments in Pakistan, but will also provide an opportunity to the Jihadi groups to revive again. Question is, is all this being done only to malign and target MQM after Altaf Hussain`s statement, or perhaps it is an indication of a new strategy from the military establishment to “deal with” India in the days to come?

In short, if the Pakistani authorities really want to root out the extremism, they will have to isolate all Taliban apologists, whether in the political governments or in the military establishment, so that a serious operation can be launched to make Pakistan free from all sort of terrorism. But, if this is not done, it means the purpose of the on-going operation is not to eliminate the extremists, but to sideline MQM which is the only strong voice against radicalization. In such a case, the Ismaili bus attack would not be the last attack at all, but, God forbids, there could be more to come for which political as well as military establishment would be responsible.