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India-Pakistan
January 10, the Shaikhul Islam and 'Kaptaan'
2013-01-11
I avoided much of the agony on January 10 because I was fortunate enough to be travelling and social media applications on my cell phone were off. But by the night, agony and grief gripped me. In a single day, Pakistan lost over 115 innocent citizens and had hundreds of people injured. The serial blasts in Quetta’s busiest bazaar and the one at a Tableeghi Markaz — the district preaching headquarter of the Tableeghi Jama’at — near Mingora, Swat traumatised us, once again. Equally disturbing was the news from the Line of Control where Indian and Pakistani soldiers have been killing each other at the expense of the peace process between the two countries. One hopes that it won’t detract from the army’s apparent paradigm shift in the identification of the real enemy.

The mystery of the mayhem at a grand mosque in Swat, reportedly killing over 22 pious preachers and injuring more than 50 others who gathered there for Shab-e-Juma (Friday night) prayers, has shaken the nerves of the idyllic valley and reminds us of the bloodiest of years — winter, 2009 — when beheaded and slit-throat bodies strung over poles and trees were usual sights in the morning. It is now another winter, which has witnessed its first mayhem in cold blood in Swat.

Looking at the bloodshed in the country, one cannot help but cry in agony. People of any sect, faith and ethnicity are virtually left at the mercy of barbaric hands while the already handicapped government is threatened by a ‘Shaikhul Islam’ whose aim, it seems, is to have an interim technocrat government with himself as prime minister. For the government, January 14 will be a doomsday as Shaikhul Islam Dr Tahirul Qadri sees it. But what he and his ilk don’t see is the fact that the people of Pakistan have been experiencing doomsday scenarios for decades.
Posted by:tipper

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