Savage bombing of a mosque

EDITORIAL: Ever since November 1995 when al-Qaeda terrorists carried out a deadly attack on Egyptian embassy in Islamabad Pakistan has been a playing field of terrorists of various genres, but with alternating variation of timeframe.

So, after a relative calm of a couple of years Pakistan appears to have fallen prey to terrorists of local brand; they’re known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). What does this entity really want? There is no clear answer to this question.

But what we all know about it is that the TTP and its local al-Qaeda affiliates believe that before they get anything they should kill innocent people — be they at mosques, bus stands or railway stations. One such attack was carried out by a suicide-bomber on the Peshawar Police Lines mosque on Monday as the faithful assembled there for Zuhr prayer.

According to figures available by the time these lines were being written, 100 persons were killed and almost twice that number injured. Given the roof of the mosque had also caved in, the number of fatalities and casualties under the debris is also likely to increase. In other words, the bombing was timed to cause as much carnage as possible. Of course this is not the first time Peshawar is the target of a terrorist attack; equally bloody carnage had been the fate of this city in the recent past as well.

As ever before, the concerned quarters that are responsible to ensure terror-free Peshawar and other places in the country, are looking into the mosque bombing from various angles, the most pertinent being possibility of a security lapse. That a person with explosive material weighing something like 15 kilos could walk through undetected at least three check-posts and three guards posted at the main entrance of the mosque, is unbelievable. It is important to note that this mosque is located in ‘Red Zone’ of Peshawar city; and houses almost the entire police-related security offices, and residences of the staff.

There is also some talk about the possibility that the suicide-bomber was facilitated by somebody living in the locality. Then there is also confusion as to who was the bomber. While, according to an earlier report, he was a member of the TTP and then there was denial by the TTP spokesperson, who distanced his group from the attack, insisting that “TTP guidelines strictly prohibit attacks on mosques and public places”.

If not the TTP then who is behind this horrendous bloodbath? It’s indeed a question that tends to acquire relevance, given that India too relishes instability in Pakistan. And may be, as some say, the TTP is revengeful because Islamabad ‘backed out’ from its promise to take back the TTP men and resettle them.

Whatever are the causes and lapses that culminated in the deadly attack on the mosque in Peshawar the entire ambience of this on and off challenge of terrorism deserves a fresh appraisal. You ask Kabul to rein in the TTP by closing down its safe havens and the prompt reply would be that ‘they [TTP terrorists] are not on its soil as they are Pakistanis and live in Pakistan’. India too denies its hand in fomenting terrorism in Pakistan, and contrarily blames it on Pakistan.

Rightly then, Pakistan has to fight its demons on its own. There is, therefore, the need to implement the National Action Plan (NAP) without any further loss of time. If followed in letter and spirit, the NAP has the potential to put the security paraphernalia on modern lines to deal with the challenge of terrorism in an effective and meaningful manner. Zero tolerance for terrorists is what the government and public want, but how to go about it? On terrorism, the government may, for this purpose, have to follow Chairman Mao’s dictum ‘ta ta, tan tan – fight fight, talk talk’.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023