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.
We are good people
I am planning a trip to Pakistan after almost 6 years of staying in US. I am little afraid because of all the bomb blasts and violence, yet I get courage from the fact that my mother, my brother and my sisters live there in the midst of all the chaos. If they can, I should be able to as well. The only difference is that I have a choice to stay out of it and they don’t. Is it wise to be so called wise? and make a wise decision not to go see my family, or should I once again test my fate.
The may 27 Bomb blast in Lahore happened close to where I will be living in Lahore. My town of Anarkali. Such events simply make me feel very sad and quite. Its like a village is burning and you sit on the side, quite, sad and grieving. You are losing your whole world in front of you and there is nothing you can do about it. There is absolutely nothing you can do. Or may be you are shocked by the inhumane, insensitive, barbaric acts of violences and you wonder. You wonder only about the creation MAN and its creator and seemingly meaningless purpose of the creation. Its indeed a thin red line. Why? Why is it so thin and why its so easily crossed by so many. Its actually crossed by so many people in almost all eras that one start to suspect that may be that is in fact the true nature of MAN. Barbaric, restless, destructive and cruel.
I don’t know. All I know is that people of Lahore are mostly illiterate, simple, down to earth, fun loving, happy go lucky, faithful people. We are good people. We are good people and we are good people.
Don’t murder the good people, infact don’t murder anybody, dont do it for any reason and certainly don’t do it for islam. Dont do it. walk away, stay away, let it go. let us go. Let us live, let us live to be with our kids and family. Don’t kill us. We are good people
Sympathies to the victims and deepest condolences to the families.
However I would like to ask this enlightened crowd who is so upset by these ‘taliban’….When your own country was supporting arming and leading the destruction of another country (Afghanistan) by unleashing this same evil philosophy on them where were you ?.
The destruction of the liberal afghan life is the victim of Us-Pakistan strategy. And now this frankenstein is attacking the creator -> suddenly it doesn’t seem so ‘pure’ and ‘islamic ‘ any more ?
IMHO the army should focus on evacuating civilians from this area, seal it and then gas it, Saddam style. That’s the only way to kill these cockroaches. The other option would be to nuke it along with FATA after evacuating civilians. Any mullah or political party opposing this should be arrested, charged with treason and hung at every available lamp post. This is the language these people understand. Talks and peace treaties are made with people who know the meaning of these gestures and have respect for human life.
May the souls of all Pakistani’s who died in Lahore and before them at the hands of these vermin rest in peace. Aameen.
I do not understand the manta
i am sad that people keep on going to religious interpretations to condemn / justify these attacks. if you guys have to see every act in glasses colored with religion , how come you are different from mullas or other religious bigots ?
these attacks are shame even for humanity, let alone for some religion or holy books. not even animals do this sort of sense less killing…