Adil Najam
Once again our eyes swell up, our hearts miss a beat, our body shakes in shock and anger, and the banality of mayhem hits us in the gut, as the enemies of Pakistan continue on their killing spree. 23 Pakistanis are dead in Lahore in today’s dastardly attack already. More remain in critical conditions.
We have been here before: here and here and here and here and here here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and it seems everwhere. One cannot bear to count any more. One shudders to think. Just how many Pakistanis will be slaughtered by the beasts who do this before their hatred is satisfied?
According to Dawn:
LAHORE: Gunmen detonated a car bomb near police and intelligence agency offices on Lahore’s Fatima Jinnah road Wednesday, killing 23 people and wounding more than 100, officials said. At least four men with rifles stepped out from the car and opened fire on the intelligence agency building, then set off a massive blast when security guards returned fire, officials said.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik suggested the attack could be retaliation for the government’s military offensive to rout Taliban militants from the northwestern Swat Valley. Wednesday’s attack was the third major strike in Lahore in recent months. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest bombing. Police said one suspect was detained.
… The explosion sheared the walls off buildings in a main business district. TV footage showed bleeding bystanders and emergency workers carrying the injured toward ambulances. ‘The moment the blast happened, everything went dark in front of my eyes,’ witness Muhammad Ali said. ‘The way the blast happened, then gunfire, it looked as if there was a battle going on.’ Sajjad Bhutta, a senior government official in Lahore, told reporters that a car carrying several gunmen pulled up in a street between offices of the emergency police and the Inter-Service Intelligence.
‘As some people came out from that vehicle and starting firing at the ISI office, the guards from inside that building returned fire,’ he said. As the firing continued, the car suddenly exploded, he said. The ISI and police buildings were both badly damaged. An AP reporter saw dozens of troops entering the ISI building to supervise the rescue work, while gunshots were heard from inside the building even one hour after the blast. Television footage showed officers dragging a black-shirted man from the scene.
Malik blamed the attack on militants that government forces are fighting in the Swat Valley and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas near Afghanistan. ‘These terrorists were defeated in FATA and Swat and now they have come here,’ he told reporters.
How much of this is related to teh operation going on in FATA and Swat and how much is a continuation of what has been happening month after month and week after week is unclear, but what is very clear is that, as always, Pakistanis die, Pakistanis cry.
It’s very sad. How does life goes on in Pakistan? This should be stop.
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@hassan tariq
no islam is not secular
god and his prophets were secular, but ironically there is nothing secular about a rabbi, priest or a mulauna
its a lie that there is anything secular about islami shariat…..those who dream of democracy or secularism under the wings of shariah are exteremly misinformed or disillusioned……
if you dont agree with an islamic scholar’s interpretation of islam or his version of right or wrong, he has the power to declare you non-muslim and give a futwa to behead you…i dont understand how this is secular?
if u want secularim, you will need to turn away from power hungry, ready to flog you, behead you, or decalre you kafir mullah, and turn towards a sufi….who says, (as one friend here said earlier)….masjid dha dhay, mundar dha thay, dil na kissi tha dha,,,,
if we are ready to be honest we need to question…..how wld we feel the god for whom e one is fighting he says at the end of this game “i really dont care if u were jew, or christian, or sitarah purast…all i care is that you believed in me, in doomsday and did good things”……(see surah buqra ayat 62)
but wohoooooooooooo a priest’s heart will burn in agony that wah his business doesnt mean anything….a mullah teaching his followers look we are the greast all others are infidels will die with envy that oh no…..this cant be so, wht about my shop….i declare futwas e day, whose aamal are acceptable and whose not…..but my friends this is what quran says……..what we as humanbeings do is all that matters…..I HOPE BIG EGOS WILL NOT LIKE THIS SIMPLE FACT….