Quetta attack

The audacious attack in Quetta on Thursday which led to the deaths of DIG Hamid Shakeel and two other policemen in a suicide bombing near the martyred DIG’s residence raises many questions over the state of security in the province of Balochistan. A bomber, armed with a sizeable quantity of explosives, was able to make his way to the highly protected location near Chaman House where top officials in the province are housed. How this happened we do not know. We would assume that, given the periodic attacks on the security apparatus in Balochistan, which have killed hundreds of policemen while on duty, the elaborate security network we maintain would have spread out to try and infiltrate the groups responsible. Such infiltration is fundamental to breaking up militant networks. Instead, there appears to have been no such security alert to the attack or any measures to offer better protection to vulnerable police officials.

Of course, the security situation in Balochistan is a difficult one to tackle. It involves extremist terrorist outfits who have in the past unleashed violence across the province targeting communities like the Shia Hazaras while alongside this runs a nationalist insurgency which operates at different levels. Efforts have been made to suggest that these two sources of violence are connected. There are doubts about the accuracy of this information. But what there is no doubt about is that dangerous terrorist outfits have been able to remain operational in Quetta and beyond it in other parts of Balochistan. When the best members of the police force, which has been the main target of attacks on security personnel in Balochistan, are removed from the scene, there is greater room for militants to unleash their violence and take away yet other members of society locked in what seems to be an unending war against violence. There are as yet no signs the situation in Balochistan is drawing to an end. In the troubled province of Balochistan, there are clearly many different strands of conflict – not all of which require the same solution. This is a problem we need to tackle if there is ever to be anything resembling peace and calm in our land.