CPEC enemies behind terror attacks in Balochistan

ISLAMABAD: Three stunning back-to-back terrorist attacks, claiming three dozens of lives in Balochistan in just two days, are timed with the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation conference being held in Beijing and the departure of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, leading a high-powered delegation, for China to attend it.

By striking Deputy Senate Chairman Abdul Ghafoor Haidri’s convoy in Mustung and killing of ten labourers in two separate assaults in Gwadar, the terrorists attempted to give the message that Pakistan was not safe and suitable for the multibillion dollar China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC) with the Gwadar port being its lynchpin, and the criminals are out to torpedo it. Nothing could be greater enmity to Pakistan than this terrorism and its timing.

By convening the Belt and Road Forum (BRF), which is part of the “Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road” (OBOR) initiative launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013, China is telling the world that it is uncompromisingly going ahead with the mega development of infrastructure. The BRF, aimed at promoting common development through win-win cooperation, is being attended by 27 heads of state and government. The CPEC is the flagship programme of OBOR.

Hours after the premier, accompanied by all the four chief ministers, left Pakistan for China to attend the grand deliberations, Haidri’s cavalcade was struck by suicide bombing. The deputy chairman, who sustained multiple non-life threatening injuries, survived the assassination attempt. This violent act flabbergasted many people as his Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) is a recognized, established religious party, which keeps promoting the religion aggressively much more than any other entity.

On the following day, when good news was coming from China, criminals gunned down poor daily wage earners, who had to come to Balochistan from Sindh to earn their livelihood. While addressing the Bhasha Project Conference organized by China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) the prime minister spoke high of the cooperation by the Chinese government as well the NEA to help Pakistan cope with energy crisis through building power generation projects.

The NEA has been an effective and reliable partner in its fight to cope with energy crisis and apart from helping Pakistan in addressing the issue of power shortages, it has also helped Pakistan’s power sector experts in going through the critical learning curve, he said.

“Pakistan's human resource had benefited tremendously from its interaction with experts and academia under the NEA. The work done by the Joint Working Group on energy has laid a solid foundation for the development of Pakistan’s energy sector to its optimal potential. At present, the NEA is looking after the bulk of high impact power projects in Pakistan under the CPEC.”

Though the terrorism taking place on Friday and Saturday was part of the greater nefarious agenda of local and foreign forces inimical to Pakistan which are desperately working to destabilize the homeland and sabotage the CPEC, the instant gory incidents occurred when the OBOR of which the CPEC is an essential and fundamental part was being discussed by over two dozens of countries in Beijing to draw maximum benefits from this unprecedented, historic and unheard of development enterprise.

Not only the local elements, who are being used by foreign powers, but their masters also know it very well that they can’t stop or impede the unparalleled pace of development work on the CPEC projects. All the top leaders of the federal and provincial government, setting aside their differences on a number of issues, are on the same wavelength to carry out the CPEC come what may. By going to China together, they have told the terrorists and foreign countries that they are one on the CPEC, which would be completed at all costs at a fast pace.

The job of the premier intelligence agencies and law enforcement paraphernalia is to use all their sources and resources to catch hold of the terrorists, who played the dirty trick at this point of time. Justice has to be done to them. There are no reports whether or not there were intelligence alerts hinting at these terrorist attacks.

There has been sudden surge of terrorism in Balochistan on the eve of OBOR whereas the situation in this province has been put under control to a large extent because of effective measures. However, these occurrences proved that remnants of terrorists still have the wherewithal to strike.

The nationwide military operation Ruddul Fasaad needs to be accelerated particularly in certain regions of Balochistan, which is going to play a major role in the CPEC. Most important is the location of Gwadar port there.