The aim of the Lashkar-e-Janghvi (LeJ; the reinvarnation of the Sipah-e-Sahaba) since 1996 has been to create a sectarian divide on a regional level that could lead to a global war. The police academy in Quetta was its latest target on October 24, and 61 young men lost their lives.
For such Deobandi groups, the elimination of the Shi’ite sect is not something that can garner mass support, and thus their attention has turned the military, the police, and the state, to eventually install some form of religious theocracy on the model of ISIS.
So now children at schools pay, the lawyers and intellectuals pay, the police pays, the minorities pay, for a blood soaked dream of an Islamic caliphate, where none can exist except the fascist fundamentalist minds of the Lej, the Jaish-e-Muhammad, the Jamaat-ul Ahrar and the rest of their dangerous fraternity.
Although the Pakistani government banned LeJ in 2001, it has been involved in numerous high-profile terrorist attacks, including bus and church bombings, and killings of hundreds of Shi’ias in Pakistan. The group influences local politics through affiliate parties in parliament and politicians it supports. Last month that more than 500 candidates backed by banned outfits made their way into Punjab’s local governance system. LeJ also reportedly intimidates members of the country’s judicial system and retaliates against government and police officials.
Any apologetic emotion for these radical right wing groups has to be called out as myopic and immoral. The year is 2016- the Afghan Jihad, colonisation, and even 9/11 cannot be blamed anymore for the deaths that religious groups are causing today. They are not the immediate causes anymore, and we cannot continue to export blame. Any support or sympathy for groups even remotely linked to a killing of single Pakistani is treasonous. This is the core sentiment that needs to unite people against religious extremists. Physical harm is always criminal, and so is anything said or written that can lead to someone being harmed.
The young men who died at the police academy have protected us with their lives. The only true cause worth fighting for is the protection of Pakistan, as it is constitutionally imagined. Anything that challenges that must be condemned and eliminated. And therein lies the problem of the state- how did we come to a point, where LeJ like groups, call the shots and the politicians just end up appeasing dangerous men?http://nation.com.pk/editorials/29-Oct-2016/blood-soaked-dreams
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