There is bloodbath in Balochistan

Bloodbath is fast becoming a synonym for Balochistan. 

The province bleeds on so many fronts every other day: police officials, paramilitary personnel, Hazara people, laborers workers on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Punjabi settlers. 

On Wednesday, a police officer with his family – wife, son, and granddaughter - was shot at and killed in a targeted killing whereas one onlooker was also injured, for being at a wrong place at the wrong time, in the gun attack in Nawan Killi area.

Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Abdul Razzaq Cheema said the two people riding a motorcycle targeted the family in a drive-by shooting. Earlier, police were in the mourning, when a DIG and two others were attacked and killed in a blast in the city last week. If well-guarded police officers had no escape from the blood-thirsty assailants, what to say of the laborers working on a CPEC projects who were killed in a duck shooting in Kech district on Wednesday. Levies found bullet-riddled bodies. According to a DawnNews report, the deceased were from Punjab and working on a CEPC project. In earlier weeks, Hazara people were gunned down.  

As is the norm, a high-level crackdown ensues whenever there is a high profile murder in a targeted killing, government functionaries religiously followed the rituals and vowed to arrest the murderer of police officers.   

Balochistan kept on wearing an impatient calm when there was a wave of death and destruction in tribal areas and targeted suicide bombing across the country from 2001 till 2013. When military operation Zarb Azab claimed peace in most of the parts of the country, Balochistan erupted with sectarian and terrorism. There have been attacks on workers of the CPEC projects, shrines, religious congregation, political leadership and the common man.

It seems Balochistan is under attack from dissidents and terrorists. The government needs to take up a two-pronged strategy to deal with the violence in Balochistan – talks with Baloch leaders and action against Taliban and religious extremists.

Baloch nationalist leaders and workers have been pushed to the wall by the state for their political demands. The demands included provincial autonomy and less and less interference in the federal government. The government, however, answered their demands with the assassination of Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti in an army operation. Several Baloch leaders were hounded, harassed and killed. Now, several Balochs have been under exile, waging their struggle against the government and the establishment. The government has, several times, extended them offers for talks, but in vain. They will (or should) come to the dialogue table as the confrontation or guerilla warfare will not land them victory against an organized, disciplined Pakistan Army,    

On the other hand, the religious fanatics waging a war of terrorism on Balochistan shrines and sects deserve no leniency from the state. Inspired by the Islamic State, Taliban and Al Qaeda, these outfits do not believe in democracy, peaceful co-existence. The merchants of deaths have been working for a long time and have claimed several lives in suicide-cum-target attacks.

Of the two fronts, the government needs to talk to the people on a fast track, so that the government fully concentrate on eradicating terrorists.

Over to the government.