Imran Khan On Musharraf’s Red Fort Terrorism: Chinese Victims
THE siege at Islamabad’s Red Mosque is over. But why did it end in bloodshed and madness?
A number of questions arise. Why was action not taken immediately? How were militants and arms able to get in under the gaze of the police and intelligence services? And why were other measures, including shutting off electricity at the mosque, not exhausted earlier?
The episode appears to have been drawn out deliberately by President Musharraf. Since he sacked the chief justice in March, a movement led by lawyers, journalists and opposition parties has been clamouring for democracy on Pakistan’s streets. As Musharraf faces his biggest crisis, he is desperate to prove his indispensability to the west in the war on terror.
But this use of force is likely to produce unintended and dangerous consequences, as it has in Baluchistan, Waziristan and Bajaur. It may be salutary to recall how Indira Gandhi’s order for troops to attack the Golden Temple, where Sikh militants were holed up, not only failed to subdue the militants but triggered a wave of violence, including her assassination. While few Sikhs may have sympathised with the militants, many came to deeply resent the government’s high-handedness.
Suicide bombing and other noxious forms of terrorism were once alien to Pakistan. After eight years of military dictatorship, radicalism and fundamentalism are in the ascendant everywhere. Musharraf is perceived among radical elements as the west’s instrument in a “war on Islam” – there could be no greater failure in the battle for hearts and minds.
A wider conflict:
While police maintained it was a robbery attempt, a local witness said the attackers with their faces covered were shouting religious slogans when they opened fire on the four Chinese nationals in a three-wheel auto-rickshaw factory at Khazana, a town some eight kilometers from Peshawar.
The fourth Chinese were seriously wounded and is admitted to the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar. e said, “My son and two nephews were killed, everything is finished.”
Khazana Police Station officer Moharrir Ghaffar was quoted by the Daily Times as saying that the four Chinese nationals had been attacked at around 9.30 p.m. near the Landi Sarak area, where they were building three-wheeled Qinqi auto-rickshaws…
The incident comes in the wake of China voicing support for the Pakistani Government’s crackdown on the Lal Masjid.
Posted: 11th, July 2007 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
