Pakistan was shaken up on June 15 by three incidents of fierce terrorism targeting both the country's heritage and future. Once again saboteurs struck Quetta, the capital of the country's insurgency-hit province Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, and has been facing the brunt of the ongoing wave of terrorism and foreign-orchestrated insurgency over the past decade. The terrorists' first target was Ziarat Residency, the official residence of the father of nation, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah where he often stayed until his death in August 1948.The Ziarat Residency is a place of national heritage and a monument that thousands of tourists visit every year. The next target was a bus carrying female students from a women's university which was blown up by a female suicide bomber just outside the main gate. Then, almost simultaneously, a group of terrorists stormed into Bolan Medical College complex where they took positions on a roof top and remained engaged in cross-fire with security officials for several hours, killing and wounding over a dozen people. These attacks left 30 people killed including 14 female students, four nurses, and four security officials including the chief of Quetta's administrative apparatus, deputy commissioner Abdul Mansoor Kakar. The responsibility for the Ziarat Residency attack was claimed by the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), an insurgent group working for the separation of the province from the country. According to intelligence reports, BLA is funded by different enemies of the country including neighboring countries which eye Baluchistan's vast resources of oil, gas, and minerals. Another banned group Lashkar Jhangvi, which is a sect-motivated organization, claimed responsibility for the other two attacks. As usual, both groups rang Western media within a few minutes of the incidents, claiming they had carried out the attacks. The daring attacks raised many question about the efficiency of the security agencies that have been literally controlling every street of Quetta and have also set up posts in other sensitive areas of the province which has been battling formidable subversive and insurgent activities. Every Pakistani was deeply grieved by those sad incidents, which not only attacked a symbol of the country's history associated with the father of the nation, but also struck at the very hope for a bright future by killing budding surgeons and physicians. Those attacks struck at what remains of the sense of security and pride of the Pakistani people, and cast a pall of gloom over the entire nation.Also, for the first time in many decades, Baluchistan has a government headed by a pro-nationalist chief minister Dr. Abdul Malik Baloch who comes from the middle-class and is known for raising his voice for the rights of the Baloch people. In the past the province had always been ruled by feudal lords with whom the general populace and those youth who resort to separatism refused to talk since they considered them stooges of the military establishment. Moreover, the governor of the province Muhammad Khan Achakzai is a Pashtun with credentials similar to those of the chief minister. With the presence of these two gentlemen in the two top slots, there was a ray of hope for the first time in recent history that the gangrene of insurgency in the province could be eradicated. Many believe that attacks of this intensity were aimed at sabotaging the peace process before it was started. However, in order to frustrate this conspiracy, the peace process must continue. Both the military establishment and political leadership must chalk out a joint strategy to hold talks with all stakeholders and sincerely implement what is agreed upon with them to bring them back into the national mainstream. Decisive action should be taken against those who continue to resort to terrorism after the beginning of the peace talks, since public support will be with the government in rooting out subversive elements, and the talks will not generate hated against the government as they had in the past. It is time that the government adopts a clear and practical strategy to restore peace and eradicate the very causes that have generated separatist tendencies and traitors in the country. – Mansoor Jafar is editor of Al Arabiya Urdu based in Islamabad. Follow him on Twitter @mansoorjafar
