Sectarian Blast in Karachi

Around 45 people were killed and around 150 others injured in a massive blast in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city on Sunday, 03 March 2013.  The blast that was triggered by planting explosives in a vehicle near a market in Karachi's Abbas town, a locality dominated by the Shiite population, triggered massive fires and shattered the façade of many a surrounding buildings.  A gas pipeline exploded under the impact, leading to a speculation about another blast.  The casualties are expected to rise as many are believed to be trapped under the debris.  The bomb exploded outside a Shiite mosque as people were leaving after evening prayers and the casualties included many women and children.  After the blast, Shiites in Karachi fired their weapons into the air to protest the killings, which further hampered the rescue efforts.  According to preliminary reports over 150 kg of explosive was used which resulted in a crater that was four feet deep and over six feet wide. Lashkar-e-Jhanghvi (LeJ), a Sunni sectarian outfit aligned with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which had taken credit for the previous two major blasts is believed to be responsible for the blast in Karachi.

This was the third major attack on the Shiite community in last eight weeks. Earlier, a suicide attack in Quetta, the capital of restive Baluchistan province on 10 January, had killed over 100 and injured 200 others; another blast at Quetta on 16 February had killed 84 and injured 200 others. These are over and above the daily bout of sectarian violence where scores of adherents of the two sects have been killed.  Just the previous day, on 02 Mar 13, five Shia citizens and one Sunni activist were killed. The sectarian rift in Pakistan has been increasing and is making Pakistan’s Shias, who constitute 20 per cent of its population insecure.  2012 was considered the worst year for Shias when 502 Shias were killed in Pakistan, however, the figure for the current year is already touching 300. The menace in not confined to Karachi and Baluchistan as is widely perceived, but has spread to every corner of Pakistan and territories controlled by it.  According to ARY News, in 2012, Baluchistan was the arena for a continuing pogrom of Shias, where 156 of them were killed. 146 Shias were killed in Sindh, most of them in Karachi, 99 in Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir, 80 in Punjab and 21 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The death toll in Baluchistan during the current year has already crossed 200.  The figures do not take into account killings where motive for killings has not clearly been established.

Sectarian conflict in Pakistan is a natural corollary of the divisive ‘Two Nation Theory’.  After having asserted that the Muslims of the sub-continent were a separate nation, the next logical question was, ‘Who is a Muslim’.   Pakistan was confronted with this problem in 1953, when there were massive anti- Ahmadiyya riots and many clerics demanded their expulsion from the fold of Islam.  A commission comprising Justice Munir and Justice Kayani of the Pakistan Supreme Court was set up to establish if Ahmadiyya were Muslims. The commission ruled that it was not in a position to decide on the issue as no two ulema of the 23 it had summoned could agree on the precise definition of a Muslim.  After the liberation of Bangladesh, when the number of non-Muslims became insignificant, the fanatic adherents of the exclusivist ‘Two Nation Theory’ looked for new objects of hate and turned their ire towards their co-religionists, who differed from their own version of Islam.  Consequently, the violence was used to settle scores not only between Shias and Sunnis, but also between different strands of the same sect.

The dynamics of sectarian violence in Pakistan generally follows a set pattern. The Shias dominate the professional space and are generally more educated and affluent; many of the doctors, lawyers and journalists are Shias. They have also had significant presence in various echelons of power.  The founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah was a Shia, and so were Nazimuddin, Mohammad Ali Bogra, Iskander Mirza, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Yahya Khan and Benazir Bhutto.  Even today, President Zardari and the chairpersons of both the houses of parliament are Shias. Initially, the Sunni outfits thrived by pitting the poor Sunni tenants against the rich Shia landlords in Jhang district of Punjab.  Generally, it is not easy to identify Shias; consequently, the Sunni militants target prominent Shias, whose sectarian identities are well known. Other targets are clerics, Imambarahs, processions specific to Shia community like Ashura and Chelhum processions and localities specific to Shias as happened in Karachi. The Shia pilgrims travelling to holy places in Iraq and Iran by bus have also been targeted frequently.  Of late, they have used suicide bombing quite effectively to target Shia congregations. Shia retaliation has by and large been restricted to targeting Sunni militants and clerics preaching hatred against Shias.

To aggravate the situation, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), popularly known as Pakistan Taliban have joined LeJ and other Sunni militant groups to target the Shias as well as Barelvi Sunnis.  Most of the big attacks on Shias especially in Sindh and Punjab bear clear Taliban signatures. More significantly, there have been reports that ‘the omnipotent security establishment’ has been supporting Sunni militants in Baluchistan and Gilgit-Baltistan, where many dreaded sectarian militants have been let loose.  It appears as if ‘the establishment’ perceives sectarian violence to be an effective antidote against nationalist movements in these restive regions.  A dreaded leader of LeJ, Malik Ishaq, was acquitted by the courts, even though he was involved in killing of hundreds of Shia and had boasted about it in front of media.  He has been “detained for one month” by the authorities after the Quetta Blast on 22 Feb 13. However, the blast in Karachi shows that such half-baked actions against the sectarian militants will neither deter them nor give a signal of government’s resolve.

Sunni militants have not confined their attacks on various Shia sub-sects alone, but have also targeted Barelvi Sunnis and their Sufi shrines.  It is ironical that in a state, where the head of the state is Shia, not a day passes when some Shia or the other is not killed for professing his faith. 

The author is a Senior Fellow at CLAWS

Views expressed are personal