- Violence in Pakistan will be ended by an Afghan settlement
By Dr Tehmina Aslam Ranjha
Pakistan is passing through trying times. On October 10, a renowned religious scholar and an administrator of Jamia Farooqia, Maulana Adil Khan, and his driver were gunned down in the Shah Faisal area, of Karachi. The assailants, who had come on motorcycles, were unidentified. On October 25, a bomb went off in the Hazar Ganji area of Quetta, taking the lives of four bystanders. It was a typical vehicle-borne improvised explosive device mounted on a motorcycle, and detonated through a time appliance. Reportedly, the Balochistan Liberation Army, a militant ethnic organization working for an independent Balochistan, claimed the responsibility for the attack. On October 27, a bomb blast devoured the lives of seven innocent students instantly and injured more than a hundred students gathered at a religious seminary (the Speen Jamaat mosque) in the Dir Colony area, Peshawar. Early in te morning, someone left a bag of explosive which had been fitted wit a time appliance. The series of violent incidents has caused the alarm to be raised in Pakistan.
Regarding the probable reason for the uptick in violence, there have emerged two schools of thought. One school of thought says that the series of violence is a spillover effect from Afghanistan, especially from its south-east region bordering Pakistan. In Afghanistan, a conflict is going on between the forces loyal to the Kabul regime and the Afghan Taliban. The Kabul regime is also in negotiations with the Afghan Taliban at Doha, Qatar, to settle the modalities of power sharing after the US forces leave Afghanistan, as scheduled, by May 2021. Since 12 September, rounds of talks have been taking place but to no avail. The Afghan Taliban are adamant about re-establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and thus substituting the current scheme of an Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. One of the major stumbling blocks is the way the Afghan Taliban plan to interpret Islamic jurisprudence, as there are sectarian groups inhabiting Afghanistan wary of any partisan explanation. These groups cherish their own versions of Islamic jurisprudence. Similarly, the rights of women have been a moot point. The Afghan Taliban have not yet explained the way they would interpret Islamic laws on the rights of women to seek education and work in the fields. The delegation of the Afghan Taliban has insisted on general principles of Islamic law and not specifically the law’s application in this modern age. Although there is a truce between the US forces and the Afghan Taliban, no such truce exists between the Kabul regime and the Afghan Taliban, who spare no chance to engage in combat with each other. It is assumed that the Afghan Taliban are getting frustrated at the talks and the attendant stalemate and have resorted to disrupt the peace in Pakistan, which pushed them into the talks.
The Tehrike Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is fiercely opposed to the act of the government to fence the Durand Line. It is known that fencing is bound to restrict and regulate mobility across the border, and this factor offers a major hindrance to both the public in general and the members of the TTP. Common people might be ready to cross the Pakistan-Afghan border through designated visa-dependent entry check points. Nevertheless, the TTP takes the fence as a method meant for circumventing their free movements across the border from the points of their choice. Perhaps, the separatists in all the three provinces assume that the PDM is somehow forwarding and supporting their cause and is sympathetic to them
The second school of thought says that the bomb blasts are a spinoff of the internal situation of Pakistan. The bomb blasts can be seen in isolation from the assassination of the religious scholar in Karachi. That is, the blast in Peshawar can be seen in combination with a bomb blast in Quetta, which was claimed by the BLA. Taken together, the separatist ethnic elements have got active in Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in an effort to capitalize on the given situation of political uncertainty in the country.
This school of thought believes that the current wave of violence ravaging Pakistan is against the background of a conglomeration of 11 regional and national political parties sitting on the opposition benches havin initiated a countrywide chain of rallies under a shared banner called te Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM). The activities of the PDM are gradually raising the political temperature across the country.
The PDM has been creating two effects. First, the PDM has become successful in catching the attention of policy and decision makers who are now spending more time in neutralizing the PDM’s narrative than looking after the internal security of the country. Second, the PDM is becoming successful in eroding the credibility of both the sitting government and the defence institutions. Despite all kinds of blackouts on the main electronic media, speeches of all leaders of the PDM are heard on the social media. Apparently, the PDM is an expression of tr discontent wrecking society. The disgruntled ethnic elements in three of the country’s four provinces– Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa– are up in arms to cash in on the given struggle between the opposition and the government benches. The way the defence institutions have been impugned, these institutions seem to be more focused on salvaging their integrity in the eyes of the people than of anything else. Further, this school of thought says that the fast deteriorating internal situation of the country is opening space for the discontented to disrupt the national political scenario. Added spite is offered by high inflation which is fast severing the relationship between the public and the sitting government.
On balance, the second school of thought favouring separatists perpetuating violence seems to be outweighing its competitor. The Tehrike Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is fiercely opposed to the act of the government to fence the Durand Line. It is known that fencing is bound to restrict and regulate mobility across the border, and this factor offers a major hindrance to both the public in general and the members of the TTP. Common people might be ready to cross the Pakistan-Afghan border through designated visa-dependent entry check points. Nevertheless, the TTP takes the fence as a method meant for circumventing their free movements across the border from the points of their choice. Perhaps, the separatists in all the three provinces assume that the PDM is somehow forwarding and supporting their cause and is sympathetic to them.
In short, the ongoing political turmoil seems to have overtaken the security of the country, making it vulnerable to internal security disturbances. Further, instead of suicide bombing the time-device based bombs have been used to disrupt peace in Quetta and Peshawar. Given the trend, it seems that more violence is in the offing, if the political turmoil is not settled.
Dr Tehmina Aslam Ranjha is an Assistant Professor at t School of Integrated Social Sciences at the University of Lahore and Research Fellow ate UoL Centre for Security, Strategy and Policy Research. Currently, she is SDPI’s grantee for a mega project on Countering Violent Extremism. She tweets at TA_Ranjha.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the paper are the author’s own. It is not the policy of the institution.
