October 8, 2004 ☼ Foreign Affairs
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
Over 40 people died when a bomb exploded at a rally called by the Sipah-e-Sahaba, a vicious Sunni extremist outfit, to mark the first anniversary of the killing of its former leader, Azam Tariq. Shia extremists, naturally, are suspected.
With the situation rapidly going out of control, Musharraf’s government has responded by banning public religious gatherings of any kind, choosing to take the enlightened route of stopping traffic accidents by banning all road traffic.
Ironically, Musharraf’s oft-repeated mantra of tackling the root-causes of terrorism begins at home — by bringing perpetrators of sectarian violence to justice. So far, Musharraf has made no moves to apprehend the often well-known sectarian extremist leaders and even the ill-fated rally was called by a banned extremist organisation which should not have been allowed to exist in the first place.
Musharraf’s talk about root causes in Palestine and Kashmir while ignoring his own gospel in his own country adds yet another feather of dissonance in his hat.
Update: Despite the ban, the outlawed Sipah-e-Sahaba was able to organise a rally right in the middle of Multan
The MIP rally went ahead despite a government ban on political and religious gatherings. The protesters blocked a main road and burnt tyres near the scene of the Thursday’s attack, casting thick black smoke. They shouted slogans against a rival sect. The crowd initially refused to disperse, when asked by police, but when the Army troops arrived, people fled and scattered into smaller groups.[The News]
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