Impatient society

We are living in a divided society and our divisions are often defined in corpses, bullets and blood. In some parts of the earth, diversity is a matter of pride and celebration but unfortunately not for us.

The barbarian incident that took place at Karakoram Highway was not so unfamiliar. In quite a unique style of barbarism, four buses were stopped by armed men said to be wearing military uniforms, off the passengers checking their CNICs, and 18 of those with obviously Shia names summarily killed by the roadside.

The deceased were innocent pilgrims coming back to their homes and families after visiting Iran. It was not the first time this has happened in the country, nor, it seems, will it be the last.

The murdered persons were not criminals, but were merely different in the detail of the way they practice their faith to those who allegedly killed them.

The act simply shows the intolerance and brutality clearly formed the religion of those who perpetrated the killings. Soon after the incident, Jundullah, the famous anti-shia outfit, claimed the responsibility of the attack that followed by unrest and immediate closure of schools in Gilgit for three days.

In his typical style, Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik spoke, claiming that the attacks were being part of a conspiracy to destabilize the country. As usual, he formed a ‘high-level’ investigation committee to probe the incident.

The need of the hour is to make strategies to mitigate sectarian strife, rather than intensify it by trying to double up it into some sort of unfixed hidden hand meddling in our affairs.

No one will reject that the killers were from a specific school thought and their prime aim was to destabilise the country, killing as many Shias as they could.

The three-man probe commission, tasked to investigate the latest massacre, will not bring positive results. The authorities will have to follow the root cause behind the killing instead of taking it as a usual incident of terrorism.

Without any doubt, there were be no serious effort will be made to arrest the killers or did so soon after the incident.

At the initial level, we will have to address the fundamentalism and intolerance from the society if we want to move forward as human being.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=14374

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Mar 1 2012. Filed under National, Opinion, Pakistan, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.