Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

100 Frontline Pakistan
did Tariq’s popularity among Sunni zealots. He was elected to the
National Assembly no less than four times. He formed a new party,
Millat-e-Islam, after the government proscribed the SSP. He escaped
many attempts on his life before falling to an assassin’s bullet outside
Islamabad. 30 His death led to a spate of revenge killings across the
country. After Tariq’s death his followers disintegrated into several
splinter groups and many of them joined LeJ.
Though the government cracked down on those new groups which
had replaced the outlawed outfits, the measures could not succeed in
the absence of a coherent long-term strategy. It was easy enough for
the militants to operate under new banners when their leaders moved
around freely. Their hate literature was freely distributed across the
country and pulpits of mosques were used by the mullahs to preach
violence. The infrastructure of the banned sectarian groups and their
capacity to carry out terrorist attacks remained unaffected, as was
evident in the surge in sectarian violence during 2004. The pattern and
scale of the violence demonstrated their extensive support network.
The gruesome killings of 40 people in twin bomb blasts in Multan
on 7 October 2004 highlighted the depth of the sectarian violence that
continued to plague Pakistan. The attack occurred at a large SSP rally
marking the first anniversary of the assassination of their leader. 31 The
bombing came a week after a suicide attack inside a crowded Shia
mosque in the city of Sialkot in Punjab province, which had killed at
least 30 worshippers. 32
The rising tide of sectarian violence was also linked to the inability
of intelligence agencies and the police to pre-empt and investigate
sectarian crimes. The inaction could partly be attributed to fear of
sectarian retaliation. Terrorists had killed many police officers who
were investigating sectarian killings in Punjab and Karachi. In 2002,
a police officer, Mohammed Jamil, was killed in Jhang after he had
arrested several LeJ activists. In July 2004, a Rawalpindi police inspector
was assassinated on his way to court to give evidence against the
terrorists involved in an attack on a Shia mosque. 33 The penetration
of law enforcing agencies by terrorist organizations was particularly
perturbing. A suicide bomber responsible for the attack on a Shia
mosque in Karachi in May 2004 turned out to be a police constable
who was also a member of SSP. At least two policemen were involved
in the attack on a Shia procession in Quetta on 2 March 2004. 34
Notwithstanding Musharraf’s promise to eradicate extremism, the
issue had never been on the government’s priority list. Without any