Lahore Carnage
By Dr Mohammad Taqi
Florida
Fifteen people, including a police guard, were killed when the jihadist terrorist group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, which has recently remerged with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), bombed two churches in Lahore right at the time of mass this past Sunday. The casualties could have been much higher were it not for the fallen volunteer and policeman who tackled the suicide bombers and prevented them from entering the church naves. The targeted Christians immediately took to protests, which turned violent. Two bystanders were beaten and then burnt by some in the crowd, something that cannot be condoned at all. It was a gruesome lynching by any standard and a judicial inquiry must ascertain the facts and bring the offenders to book.
The Federal Interior Minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, took it a step further, however, claiming that the lynching witnessed on Sunday is “the worst form of terrorism”. Mr Khan said that incidents like the brutal attack on the Lahore churches happen all over the world and when “a similar incident occurred right in the heart of Paris where a synagogue was attacked the minority Jews did not react violently in the French capital”. The protesting crowd’s excesses notwithstanding, it is rather disingenuous of Mr Nisar to compare the Christians of Pakistan to the Parisian Jews. The massive vitriol and disgusting slurs unleashed on social media by several Pakistanis against their Christian compatriots right after the Lahore tragedy gives some idea of the hate, prejudice and the denigration the Christians go through daily. Treated as second-class citizens and relegated to the periphery of society and slums of the cities, the Christians have been insulted and humiliated since long. They have been burned and bombed for years and now are being maligned too as anti-Pakistan traitors.
The same people, including Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who have rationalized the TTP’s relentless terrorist campaign as a response to US drones, are unwilling to consider the mitigating circumstances in the Lahore lynching. The people who are loath to identify the thousands of victims of terrorism by their religious, sectarian, ethnic or tribal identity, are now suddenly playing up the Islamic faith of the unfortunate lynching victims and, like Mr Nisar, conflating a law and order disaster with terrorism. What also seems to be lost on Mr Nisar is that the agitation by the Christian crowds was a vote of no confidence against his government and party, which have done absolutely naught in their six terms and 17 years of cumulative rule in Punjab to protect the beleaguered Christian community and punish its tormentors. From the caste system perpetrated on the Christians and the colossal socio-economic injustice it entails to being the perennial targets of the anti-blasphemy laws, the doomed community has reeled under prejudice without even a whimper. However, the decades of bombings and burnings, mostly on the watch of the PML-N, might have pushed the bruised and battered Christians over the edge. As the Persian adage goes: tung aamed, ba-jang aamed (frustrated to the extreme, one opts to fight back).
The extreme frustration of the marginalized and brutally victimized communities with the PML-N is not just because of the latter’s inaction but also its active hobnobbing with extremist jihadist groups. The PML-N’s consorting with the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) aka the Ahle-Sunnat-wal-Jamaat, is rather well known. The SSP is said to have been involved in the July/August 2009 rioting against the Christians in Gojra, Punjab, in which, according to official reports, seven Christians were burnt alive and 68 houses, including churches, were torched. None of the culprits was punished. The recent documents introduced in the US versus Abid Naseer trial in a New York court include materials captured from Osama bin Laden’s lair in Abbottabad, again reminding us of the PML-N’s active courting of the vicious TTP. On page 61 of the dossier is a 2010 letter from the al Qaeda operative Atiyah Abdal-Rahman to his boss bin Laden, which notes, “Regarding Tehreek-e-Taliban: we have informed Hakeemullah Mehsud and his companion Qari Hussain that the Punjab government (Shahbaz Sharif) sent them a message indicating they wanted to negotiate with them, and they were ready to re-establish normal relations as long as they do not conduct operations in Punjab [in their governmental jurisdiction, which does not include Islamabad or Bandy (Pindi)]. The government said they were ready to pay any price...and so on. They told us the negotiations were under way.” Qari Hussain Mehsud was the notorious Ustad-e-Fedayeen, i.e. teacher of the suicide bombers, who was killed in a drone strike in October 2010.
The PML-N spokespersons have denied such contacts and termed the Osama bin Laden dossier’s surfacing now, a “conspiracy”. However, exactly five years ago, in a ceremony on March 14, 2010, Mr Shahbaz Sharif stated, “The Taliban and PML-N both opposed former military dictator Pervez Musharraf” and, therefore, he was “surprised that this common stance has failed to stop the Taliban from carrying out terror attacks in Punjab”. Mr Sharif said, “General Musharraf planned a bloodbath of innocent Muslims at the behest of others only to prolong his rule, but we in the PML-N opposed his policies and rejected dictation from abroad, and if the Taliban are also fighting for the same cause then they should not carry out acts of terror in Punjab.” As abhorrent as the PML-N’s overtures to the TTP were, even more disgusting was its pitch to spare just Punjab as the rest of the country went up in flames.
The PML-N’s Punjab dispensation did not just stop at negotiations with the TTP. The very same Punjab government has funded the Jamaat-ud-Dawa’s Muridke center, allowed the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba’s Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi a life of comfort in jail and given stipends to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’s sectarian terrorist Malik Ishaq whose hands are soaked in the blood of dozens. The Punjab government has given all minorities every possible reason to doubt its motives and actions. Is it a surprise then that the Christian protestors, having zero confidence in the Punjab government’s hollow pledges to deliver justice, protested aggressively? The minorities, whether Christians or others, must however realize that in a bigoted and radicalized society, they have a really minuscule sympathy cushion that would evaporate quickly if protests turn violent, something an agent provocateur could easily accomplish. The lynching of two bystanders is out of character for a community known for its patience and peaceful conduct, and has to be thoroughly investigated. On the other hand, the suicide bombers who attacked the churches had, in all likelihood, help from Punjab-based jihadists. The Lahore carnage has put the Punjab government in the dock again for
tolerating and fraternizing with extremists of all shades.
(The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com and he tweets @mazdaki)
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