Re: Nishtar Park Bomber: LJ
http://www.dawn.com/2007/06/17/ed.htm
Tackling extremism
FRIDAY’S disclosure by the Sindh government that the man who blew himself up at the Sunni Tehrik’s religious gathering in Karachi’s Nishtar Park in April last year — killing 57 and injuring scores —belonged to a banned extremist group leaves one with cold feet. It is also a reminder that simply banning extremist groups and organisations will not make them disappear or their activities to stop. Police probe into the suicide bombing reveals that the group behind the dastardly act had planned the crime sitting hundreds of miles away in a Frontier town before executing it in Karachi. The motive given out by arrested accomplices involved in the massacre was sectarian intolerance. The killer belonged to a sub-sect of the puritan variety akin to one practised by the Taliban, which does not allow for any interpretation of religion at variance with its own. The target was a rival religious party whose top leadership and many activists were killed in the attack.
Unfortunately, there have been far too many suicide bombings and armed attacks carried out by indoctrinated men in recent years. All such murderous assaults have been prompted by hate and intolerance or by political animosities. The targets have often been well known personalities, including the president, the prime minister, the interior and other ministers, religious leaders, scholars, a former corps commander and, most recently in Quetta, soldiers of the Pakistan Army. All this leaves one to marvel at the consistent failure of the many intelligence agencies which have failed to preempt such strikes. The threat posed by religious extremism, whether home-grown or inspired by Al Qaeda, to society and public order cannot be more pronounced. The authorities’ inaction against elements that have openly indulged in spreading intolerance and threatening to enforce an extremist version of the faith, whether they be Islamabad’s Lal Masjid clerics or those behind the encroaching Talibanisation in parts of the Frontier province, has emboldened such anarchist forces to challenge the writ of the state. **It is time the government cracked down harder on such elements to put an end to this form of insanity in the name of Islam.
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