The Safoora cell

The Pakistani state appears to have kept a promise: to capture the killers of Sabeen Mahmud and those behind the Safoora Chowk attack. The police have arrested four men for the Safoora Chowk attack that targeted members of the Ismaili community, and a host of other terror incidents. Those arrested were reportedly all enrolled as students at a number of major universities in Karachi, including one at an elite business school. The police have been hailed by political parties for this rapid response to a tragedy faced by one of the most peaceful communities in the country. For the people of Karachi there can at least be some closure for the losses they have faced, with the alleged mastermind of many terror incidents having been arrested. But what should have been good news was greeted also with scepticism as the Sindh chief minister read out the list of attacks the alleged terrorists have apparently confessed to. It is hard to see how assaults on minority communities, the targeted murder of Sabeen Mahmud and blasts at schools are linked. In the past different groups have been blamed for different kinds of militancy. Now we hear a single small cell may be behind all these acts. If the Sindh government is to be believed then this small group of university students was running one of the biggest and most coherent terrorist cells in the country. Moreover, the claim appears to be that this cell was being run as an independent and autonomous entity without the coordination of major sectarian and non-sectarian terrorist groups that operate with impunity across the length and breadth of the country.
While this breaks from the patterns of terrorism we have generally come to accept, it is not unprecedented. We have other examples from the past. What does raise concern, though, is the discrepancy in statements. A few days ago authorities had blamed RAW for backing militant actions; on Tuesday Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali had said the men held in Karachi were not those who had actually carried out the Safoora Chowk bus killings. We need to know the truth. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar had also told media that the mastermind of the attacks had been wanted by the intelligence agencies for the last few years. If this is true, then what is to be said about the claim that the alleged mastermind Saad Aziz was enrolled at a prominent business school this entire time? Is it not an intelligence failure that a prime terror suspect was attending classes at a premier education institution all this time? If it is proven that the government has nabbed the right people, then it is due only a minute of credit before we return to ask the much more serious questions that emerge out of the revelations. If Saad Aziz and his ring were indeed responsible, we may need to look beyond seminaries to find our most dangerous militants. And if he was not responsible for the long list of offences blamed on him, we must be careful that those genuinely responsible do not get away as authorities complacently tell us they have found the most dangerous group of terrorists known so far to operate in a major city. What is essential is for the state to conduct a public and transparent trial of the alleged terrorists. Otherwise, any and all results will be subject to conspiracy theory.