Shia
supporters raise hands in protest in Karachi rally
This Low-Intensity
Shia-Sunni Civil War Must End
By
Muhammad-Najm Akbar
WASHINGTON:
As Pakistan’s military government fails to take decisive
action against sectarian terrorism, the ongoing low intensity
conflict between Shiite-Sunni extremists continues to drift towards
an extended civil war between these groups taking a heavy toll
on the life of ordinary citizens.
Last
few weeks have seen further consolidation of these ominous premonitions.
After the Quetta tragedy, the assassins have shifted their venue
to Karachi and played havoc with human lives there while the Chief
of Army Staff remained busy in multiplying the probabilities of
his personal survival.
Other
parts of the country also witnessed detrimental sectarian activity
as well as further deterioration of law and order in the same
period. The current wave of over 50 sectarian killings began on
May 7 when a suicide bomber attacked Haideri Mosque, situated
within the premises of the historic Sindh Madrasa-ul-Islam eventually
killing 23 and leaving over 200 injured. Jinnah went to school
there.
Three
weeks later, it was the turn of Sunnis to suffer. On May 30, Mufti
Shamzai, a leading Sunni scholar, was gunned down in his car while
leaving his home in front of Jamia Binoria. The murder sparked
violence across the city with angry protesters taking to the streets,
hurling stones at the traffic and making bone fires.
Angry
protesters also attacked various government buildings, including
Jamshed Quarters police station, offices of Quaid-i-Azam Academy
and Oil and Gas Development Corporation (OGDC), four banks, two
petrol pumps, a wine shop, and a fast-food outlet and torched
more than 20 vehicles.
Ripples
of sectarian killings travel far and wide as dead bodies are sent
for burial to other parts of the country. Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai
was born in July 12, 1952 at Sakhra near Matta in upper Swat valley.
His native town will not easily forget his assassination particularly
as he retained sound contacts with his hometown.
He
did his Masters in Arabic and Islamiat from Jamia-e-Farooqia,
Karachi. The University of Sindh awarded him a PhD degree. Shamzai
joined Jamia-tul-Uloom-e-Islamia, Binoria Town, in 1988 as a teacher
of Hadees and supervisor of PhD (Fiqah) students. He met the same
fate as his predecessor as on Nov 2, 1997, Dr Habibullah Mukhtar
and one of his colleagues were burnt to death when two motorcyclists
hurled an explosive device in their vehicle at Business Recorder
Road.
After
his assassination, Mufti Shamzai was appointed as Shaikh-ul-Hadees.
He was a member of the JUI-F central council and a supporter of
the Taliban and known to their supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar.
A
day later, on May 31, the scene of the tragedy moved back to a
Shiite mosque where a suicide bomber blew himself up killing 21
worshippers.
Outside Karachi, the situation worsened in Gilgit over a nearly
five year old dispute between the two sects over syllabi. The
area had to be placed under extended curfew to cope with the violence.
On June 6, three people were killed for violating the curfew.
It was decided finally that Shia and Sunni students would have
separate religious textbooks according to their own schools of
thoughts. The Anjuman-i-Imamia Gilgit then appealed to its followers
to refrain from violent activities.
In
Gilgit, on June 5, police also arrested a suspect in the 6 October
2003 murder of Azam Tariq. Syed Hussain Shah alias Abbas was handed
over to Islamabad police.
Following
the Quetta massacre, situation there continues to be tense. Recently,
the threats of religious extremists forced closure of non-governmental
organizations and of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees for over one week. The extremists vowed to commit suicide
bombing against them if they did not wind up their operations
in the province.
NGOs
are coming under attack from major religious parties as well.
In an article contributed to Dawn of 10 June, titled,
“In response to allegations,’ Qazi Hussain Ahmad affirmed:
“The JI feels that the AKF was unknowingly or deliberately
used by the colonial powers to implement their agenda of scrapping
Islamic ideology and principles from the minds of the new generations…..”
He also contended that the burning on May 30 of an Aga Khan Foundation
Diagnostic Center in Gulshan-e-Iqbal and another on Business Recorder
Road must be viewed in its due context.
In
related incidents, on June 10, the military government’s
total loss of control over law and order was fully exposed as
the convoy of the Corps Commander of Karachi was ambushed near
the Clifton Bridge, bringing to 62 the number of people killed
in the city since May 7.
In
the North West, amid renewed fighting in South Waziristan, nearly
40 people were killed, including over a dozen army men.
The government continues to avoid confronting the root causes
of the low-intensity sectarian civil war. The situation in Karachi
was simply reduced to a ruse to change the Chief Minister of the
province. On June 10, the Islamabad-based Musharraf government
and London-based leadership of the MQM installed a new Chief Minister
in Sindh.
The
same day, a meeting held in Islamabad, according to Dawn,
surprisingly, “was told” that “some of the banned
religious outfits were engaged in publication of magazines, pamphlets
and leaflets and other material based on sectarian hatred and
against national interest.”
Lacking
direction, the Ministries of Education and Interior leaked opposing
views on the ban on the registration of Madrassas which has been
in force since mid-nineties.
The
government’s lack of resolve to kill the dragon attracted
criticism from various parties for multiple reasons. MMA leader
Qazi Husain Ahmad regretted that all intelligence agencies had
failed to counter terrorists and deplored that an accused wanted
in murder and other cases of heinous nature had been appointed
as governor of a sensitive province like Sindh.
He alleged that the conspiracy to injure around 100 people during
recent by-poll in Karachi had been hatched in the Governor's House.
Another leader of Jamaat-i-Islami alleged "terrorism cannot
be checked by a government of terrorists.” A leader of the
ARD leader demanded that Gen Musharraf should immediately resign
and form an interim government of national consensus to check
terrorism and boost morale of the army.
A
PML-N leader termed the incident a national tragedy and said that
the rulers had no right to remain in power if they could not arrest
a handful of terrorists. Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf
Hussain accused, "These religious parties are pushing the
country towards Talibanization. Even today these religious extremists
are also running the Madaris, engaged in training youths for Talibanization
and promoting religious extremism".
Mr.
Hussain also impressed upon the government not to delay in tracing
the culprits "within defence and intelligence agencies."
Dawn wrote on June 11: “We have too long been in
denial -- denial of the fact that militarization of society and
the absence of democratic and political processes complicate issues;
denial too of the consequences of encouraging all kinds of revivalist
and ideologically blinkered tendencies in an attempt to replace
genuinely representative parties.”
Sectarian
terrorism is not the only bane of our existence. Newspapers abound
in evidence of total failure of our military masters in delivering
a safe existence to our citizens and now to themselves as well:
In related incidents of violence and its antecedents, on May 27,
General Musharraf disclosed that personnel at a junior level within
the Army and the Air Force were involved in the assassination
attempts on him in December last year.
On
May 25, a powerful blast damaged Sui Southern Gas Company's 16-inch
diameter Indus Right Bank Pipeline (IRBP) at 3 am at about 38
km upstream of Nawabshah at Veho Wah canal crossing. The same
day, a parcel bomb exploded at the gate of the Karachi port, killing
two people. On May 26, two car bombs exploded within 20 minutes
of each other outside the Pakistan-American Cultural Center and
near the US Consul General's residence, killing one policeman
and injuring more than 10, mainly policemen and journalists.
Till
June 10, six victims of the polluted water in Hyderabad city and
other lower part on Sindh, since May 15 totaled 40. On June 10,
at least 12 people, including three women and two children, were
injured when rockets were fired in the residential areas of Sui
township of Dera Bugti district.
The
military government is uninterruptedly losing capacity to look
after the welfare of our citizens and deliver services. If the
sectarian civil war intensifies, it might repeat history of its
inefficient performances. It must gather courage and act now to
eliminate the scourge of sectarian terrorism and its underlying
causes. The alternative is to go back to the barracks and let
the representatives of the people handle their affairs.
