Sheema Kermani leads civil society caravan to Sehwan for dhamal

A special open-for-all event is being held today, one year after the bomb blast at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar at Sehwan Sharif.

Eighty-two devotees were killed and more than 350 others wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the courtyard of the shrine of the Sufi saint on February 16, 2017. Addressing a news conference on Friday, Sheema Kermani, president of Tehreek-e-Niswan and a noted social activist, said the event would comprise a public discussion, distribution of free food and a dhamal (an entranced dance) aimed at highlighting the need to protect and preserve the traditional culture of Sindh -- a culture of tolerance, peace and harmony -- and to restore the age-old values of love, peace and tolerance with respect for all.

Speaking on the subject at the Karachi Press Club, she said she would be leading a team of social activists and other civil society figures to Sehwan on Saturday (today) for the event. She said that there would be around 300 people in the caravan.

Dwelling on last year’s tragedy, Kermani said the bomb blast was a bid to wipe out the cultural heritage of Sindh, which had always been a bastion of tolerance, harmony and inclusivity. Another social activist, Tahera Abdullah, who has come for the event all the way from Islamabad, said, “Along with our revered elders, we also mourn those who just left us, a reference to the late human rights activist and the champion of the cause of the disempowered, Asma Jehangir.”

She further said: “Sindh has been the land of harmony, love and tolerance, but now, ironically enough, sometimes it is Abbas Town [Karachi], sometimes it is Sehwan and sometimes others which are the sites of carnage.”

Another person who has come all the way from Islamabad is Pir Muddasir Shah. Thanking Kermani and the Tehreek for inviting him to be part of the programme, he said, “We shall never let our commitment to the cause of tolerance, peace and differing opinions wilt. We shall always fight intolerance and bigotry wherever they be.”

The director of the Irtiqa Institute of Social Sciences and a noted social activist, Kaleem Durrani, said it had become “our tradition to fight the wars of others on our soil”, a thinly veiled allusion to the Afghan Jihad of the 1980s. That way, he said, we had allowed the forces of bigotry and ill-will to foist their retrogressive values on us. “However, be sure that we’ll never be cowed down.”