A case of massive intelligence failure

ISLAMABAD: The Friday’s deadly attack on a mosque in Shikarpur is being viewed as a massive intelligence failure, as now the traditionally tolerant and peaceful interior Sindh has faced a terror strike. Thus terrorists have now added the interior Sindh to their hit list apart from Fata, KPK, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and Karachi. Luckily, Punjab has faced relatively lower number of terror incidents.
This was one of the biggest incidents of sectarian terrorism in the history of interior Sindh. This area is historically among the most tolerant areas mainly because of the spread of Sufism. But in recent years it has seen four terrorism incidents including two sectarian attacks. Friday’s incident has shattered Sindh’s image of being the most tolerant area not only with regard to sectarian coherence, this region is known for exemplary religious harmony as a very large population of Hindu community has been living here for centuries along with followers of other religions, some recent incidents of forced conversions being an exception. In the last few year four incidents of sectarian violence have taken place in Shikarpur, Sukkhar and Jaccobabad. Despite clear threat perception unfortunately there was no intelligence report regarding any such attack.
Nawaz Sheikh, special home secretary Sindh while talking to The News said that there was no intelligence report whatsoever regarding such a big attack in Shikarpur. He said that even Police (special branch) and CID had no clue of any attack of this level. Nawaz admitted that Friday’s attack was a failure of the whole system but added that because of the area being relatively peaceful no one could even think that such a big tragedy could take place.
Ghulam Hyder Jamalil, IG Police Sindh, while talking to The News said that there was no intelligence regarding Shikarpur’s bomb attack on Friday. “Pakistan is fighting an intense war on terror and such attacks are expected,” Jamali said. He said similar terrorist attacks also took place in Wahga Lahore, Peshawar and in Balochistan in recent past. Jamali denied that the Sindh government and the Sindh Police have stopped action against Afghan citizens after some directions from Islamabad. He said that the operation against Afghan nationals living illegally in Pakistan is part of the National Action Plan (NAP) and it is under way. He said that progress on NAP was also shared with the Prime Minister during Friday’s meetings in Karachi. He repeated that there was general intelligence information because of ongoing war on terror but there no specific intelligence report regarding such massive sectarian attack in Shikarpur. Sain Rakhio Mirani, RPO Larkana who heads Shikarpur Police, echoed Jamali’s contention.
Of the four bomb attacks in interior Sindh that took place in past two years one was the attack on the office of ISI in Sukkhar on July 24, 2013 which killed 9 people. Dr Ibrahim Jatoi of NPP was attacked in Shikarpur during 2013 polls campaign but he survived. On February 5, 2013, Syed Hajin Shah alias Maari Waro was attacked near Shikarpur and he succumbed to injuries after eight days. In another incident of bomb attack, Pir of Qamber Shareef Syed Ghulam Hussain Shah was attacked on February 20, 2013 in Jacobabad through a remote control bomb and his grandson was killed along with some other people but he survived. Pir of Qamber is a widely respected religious scholar and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto also used to visit him.
Top officials say that adequate security cannot be provided at each and every place. Only the most sensitive places or the places about which there is some specific intelligence report get enhanced security.