The Gashed Shaal.

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By Sanjar Baluch
Koh-e-Murdar must have felt agonized today to see Shaal (Quetta) because the Shaal of Baluchistan bled drastically on Saturday morning. The daughters of Baluch land were targeted for no crime on their part. Dressed in white, which drenched to red with their blood, these innocent children of now anguished families could not decipher their crime? Was it getting education? Being born in Baluchistan or anything else that lured their unforeseen death? The grief of families who sent their young daughters in the morning and received back nothing but shards of meat in the evening is beyond comprehension.

Today’s attack is one of the most despicable and appalling acts. The attackers cowardly blew up a student laden university bus and killed many female students but their thirst for blood didn’t satiated here and later on they targeted the injured students and doctors at the emergency ward of Bolan Medical College and kept the injured and doctors as hostages for many hours. No matter how much such acts are condemned is not enough. But this is nothing new in Baluchistan.

The Baluch land has suffered harshly since it lost its territory and sovereignty to foreign invaders and occupiers. The last six decades have remained the worst with each succeeding decade getting cruellest than the preceding and each coming year proving to be more fatal, bloody and barbaric than the previous. But the recent surge in state backed terror infiltration in Baluch land is incomparable. This has started to shake the very social fabric of Baluch society and soon it will overpower many social values, preferences and way of life.

The sectarian Islamic terrorists first surfaced in early 2000 and killed scores of Shiites in different attacks, which also include suicide attacks on Imam Bargahs (Places of worship). But after few arrests their operational activities came to a halt. Meanwhile, the Baluch struggle for liberation of Baluch land gained momentum and it proved to be a headache for Pakistani security establishment. Surprisingly the arrested leaders of Lashkar e Jangavi, who were responsible for sectarian attacks, escaped from a very high security prison located in Quetta contentment. With little effort of assembling jigsaw puzzle, it becomes clear that the escape of these terrorists was a pre-planned strategy to counter Baluch struggle in coming years.

Gradually the Islamists started preparing for their motives but with stealth planning and silent methods. Millions of funds were poured into religious seminaries all over Baluchistan. At least two training camps, one each in suburbs of Mastung and Khuzdar, tinted as Mederrasahs started operating and heaven knows how many bloodthirsty goons graduated from there.
The yield of these strategies was used in two different methods but the target was common – to counter the Baluch struggle. The likes of Shafeeq Mengal, who also heads Lashkar e Tayyaba, on the behest and support of Pakistani agencies, were groomed to target and prosecute Baluch activists. Whereas, Lashkar-e-Jangvi, which now has many Baluch foot soldiers, was ordered to ignite sectarian violence in the province to paint Baluch struggle as total opposite of what it really is. The secular struggle of Baluch nation is tirelessly and extensively being wrongly branded as a nexus between fundamentalist LeJ and secular Baluch fighters. The fact of Baluch being the members of LeJ is supporting them considerably.

Parallel with Baluch Mussala Diffa Tanzeem, the activities of LeJ are getting more powerful and more lethal. First they only targeted Shiites but now their field of activities have broaden up to an extent that they are viciously targeting civilians regardless of gender, caste and creed. Attacks on female is considered a very low act in Baluch society but these terrorists have been so dangerously brainwashed that they do not wobble in going to any extent.

The silence of Baluch elders on these dangerous developments is ironical. Apart from few lone statements there has been no any practical effort to counter this quagmire. Either there is some miscalculation or sheer apathy on part of Baluch political elders, in either of the cases it will prove very perilous for the Baluch struggle.

The blood of daughters spilled today in Shaal is demanding Baluch political brains to sit together to devise ways to defeat the dangerous plots of enemy as the LeJ, BMDT and the likes are getting powerful and stronger with each coming day.