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.
Talking about Mr. Amit’s comment, that we have to go for secularism in our country. Islam is the most Secular religion in its core. It prohibits Muslims from stopping the people from other religion to practice their religion. It is evident from the history, that if Islam didn’t allowed other religions to be practiced then there wont be any Hindu in Subcontinent where muslims ruled for centuries. On the other hand the biggest Secular State in the World (India is having too many Religious conflicts) e.g. Gujrat’s incidents. The problems happening has nothing to do with Islam being our state religion but we being NOT GOOD followers of Islam.
Please excuse me but I have another comment to make: Going through the comments I was pleasantly surprised to find one poster quoting Bulleh Shah’s verses that promoted love and peace. I was under the impression that Sufism was unpopular in Pakistan because of its variance with traditional Islam. Well, it seem I know nothing about Pakistan.
I just wanted to say I am a big big fan of Sufism and I wish all the peace loving people here well.
Can I say something that is true but may be hard to digest: There can be no hope for a liberal modern society in a country that has a state religion. Pakistanis should look for a secular alternative that is neutral towards all religions – Turkey may be a rough example for a Muslim majority nation.
it is amazing that people who think matters of national security and innocent people losing life are JOKE, while if someone says that their excuses for criminals like taliban are unacceptable…they take it personally
anyway what i am glad to see is that liberal people who keep humanity and being pakistanee above then being hardliner version of muslmanee are INCREASING everyday
in the midst of this cricis…what ray of hope i see is that over the past 6 months more and more unity is formed among people against extremist elements………at this post in eight pages almost 99.8% people are voicing support for eradicating our society of meideval mullahs and talibenee bhairyai (wolves)…..and only a negligible percent remains (like talib and arjun) who dare to apologize for talibanees……
i hope by our consensus people like this get discouraged to misguide others through their apologetic mentality
>you need to disappear.
NFarrukh, imran: Please do us all a favour and focus on the events and stop obsessing about me.
Also, it is not up to you to decide who posts here. Your posts add nothing to the discussion but are nothing but personal attacks on others. if there’s anyone who needs to go, it’s you.
Thanks.