Attacks in Balochistan; where is the state? Sher Muhammad Khan Terror and tragedy came back to haunt the citizens of Balochistan after the incident of Bolan Medical College and destruction of Quaid – I – Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah residency in Ziarat. Militants carried out a symbolic and audacious attack on Pakistan, its history and the federal structure in the small hours of June 15,2013 when they blew up the Ziarat residency, the building in which the Quaid – I – Azam spent the last days of his life in 1948. The Balochistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the strike. “We blew up the Ziarat residency,” Meerak Baloch, a BLA spokesman, said in a phone call to a Western news agency from an undisclosed location. On the other hand terrorists attack in Quetta and killed at least 25 people, including the deputy commissioner of Quetta (Abdul Mansoor Kakar), 14 students of a woman’s university and four nurses were killed on June 15, 2013 when a bomb tore through a bus, followed by a suicide attack and a gun battle in the Bolan Medical College hospital, where the injured students were taken for treatment. Chief Secretary of Balochistan Babar Yaqoob Fateh Mohammad told to media correspondents that we cannot tell the exact number of deceased persons at the moment, but can confirm around 25 casualties. We will be able to share the figure of the dead on the next time after checking from BMC hospital. What is this it means the establishment of the province and law enforcement agencies has no control on the law and order situation. People are losing their loved ones in these attacks. I was watching footages of these attacks and the hospital where the entire hospital and adjacent areas presented a picture of a battle ground as exchange of fire continued for six hours. The assailants also hurled a hand grenade at security forces that claimed lives of four FC men. This day that began with the desecration residency of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and continued with another episode of violence in Quetta. The perpetrators of these two crimes could well be worlds apart in terms of ideology, but so is the vision for Pakistan of one of the great, secular, non violent leaders of the 20th century and the reality of Pakistan today where women, students, doctors, nurses are targeted in the name of a grotesque vision of the future. That the Baloch Liberation Army knew exactly what it was doing in destroying the Ziarat rest house is obvious: it was repudiating in a spectacular manner the idea of Pakistan and broadcasting its propaganda for a separate state. That the state has again failed both at the level of intelligence gathering and preventing a terrorist attack from succeeding is also obvious. Unhappily, the more obvious these truths, the less likely it seems that anything will be done to address them. Shocking as the destruction in Ziarat is, the message it sends is equally worrying. Was the bombing meant as a cynical welcome for the new Balochistan government, led by the moderate Baloch Chief Minister Abdul Malik? The BLA has over the years reserved an almost equal fury for the army – led security establishment as it has for Baloch politicians who advocate addressing Baloch discontent within the federation of Pakistan. If Malik’s government is already in the cross heirs of the separatists, then what chance of it helping establish peace in the province? Or was this yet another attempt to lash out against the army, part of an on – going dirty war that ebbs and flows for reasons unknown far away from the media light and outside scrutiny? After all, the army controls and directs the security police in the province and has for years tried to crush the separatists with brutality. And where the state’s violence often occurs in the shadows, bodies being the only evidence later, the insurgents rely on headline grabbing attacks to make their case. Suffice it to say, attacking a site so associated with Mr. Jinnah’s name and legacy is unlikely to signal a reduction in the tit – for – tat violence in Balochistan. Now come to this point, According to the media reports that Lashkar – e – Jhangvi (Lej) claimed the responsibilities of female students killing and deputy commissioner assassination show the extremism and violence of these foreign elements which have wishes to break the Balochistan. Some of terrorists groups attack on our different places of homeland and show themselves as the representative of these outfits. Most of the ministers and other political leaders have condemned these attacks but I say that nothing will be done by these statements. If political leaders and the ruling parties are the well wisher of the Balochistan and its communities then they take stern hand against the terrorists and make sure the sovereignty, security and safety of the people. The attack in Quetta, on the other hand, could well be the work of a group representing a different ideology. But clearly, whether the violence being perpetrated is the work of separatists or religious extremists, the establishments approach is not working? Why not? In that answer lies an even more depressing truth.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 05:15:00 +0000