Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
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100 <strong>Frontline</strong> <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong><br />
did Tariq’s popularity among Sunni zealots. He was elected to the<br />
National Assembly no less than four times. He formed a new party,<br />
Millat-e-<strong>Islam</strong>, after the government proscribed the SSP. He escaped<br />
many attempts on his life before falling to an assassin’s bullet outside<br />
<strong>Islam</strong>abad. 30 His death led to a spate of revenge killings across the<br />
country. After Tariq’s death his followers disintegrated into several<br />
splinter groups and many of them joined LeJ.<br />
Though the government cracked down on those new groups which<br />
had replaced the outlawed outfits, the measures could not succeed in<br />
the absence of a coherent long-term strategy. It was easy enough for<br />
the militants to operate under new banners when their leaders moved<br />
around freely. <strong>The</strong>ir hate literature was freely distributed across the<br />
country and pulpits of mosques were used by the mullahs to preach<br />
violence. <strong>The</strong> infrastructure of the banned sectarian groups and their<br />
capacity to carry out terrorist attacks remained unaffected, as was<br />
evident in the surge in sectarian violence during 2004. <strong>The</strong> pattern and<br />
scale of the violence demonstrated their extensive support network.<br />
<strong>The</strong> gruesome killings of 40 people in twin bomb blasts in Multan<br />
on 7 October 2004 highlighted the depth of the sectarian violence that<br />
continued to plague <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>. <strong>The</strong> attack occurred at a large SSP rally<br />
marking the first anniversary of the assassination of their leader. 31 <strong>The</strong><br />
bombing came a week after a suicide attack inside a crowded Shia<br />
mosque in the city of Sialkot in Punjab province, which had killed at<br />
least 30 worshippers. 32<br />
<strong>The</strong> rising tide of sectarian violence was also linked to the inability<br />
of intelligence agencies and the police to pre-empt and investigate<br />
sectarian crimes. <strong>The</strong> inaction could partly be attributed to fear of<br />
sectarian retaliation. Terrorists had killed many police officers who<br />
were investigating sectarian killings in Punjab and Karachi. In 2002,<br />
a police officer, Mohammed Jamil, was killed in Jhang after he had<br />
arrested several LeJ activists. In July 2004, a Rawalpindi police inspector<br />
was assassinated on his way to court to give evidence against the<br />
terrorists involved in an attack on a Shia mosque. 33 <strong>The</strong> penetration<br />
of law enforcing agencies by terrorist organizations was particularly<br />
perturbing. A suicide bomber responsible for the attack on a Shia<br />
mosque in Karachi in May 2004 turned out to be a police constable<br />
who was also a member of SSP. At least two policemen were involved<br />
in the attack on a Shia procession in Quetta on 2 March 2004. 34<br />
Notwithstanding Musharraf’s promise to eradicate extremism, the<br />
issue had never been on the government’s priority list. <strong>With</strong>out any