LAHORE, May 26: Sectarian strife cuts much deeper into the southern region of Punjab than is publicly realised and officially acknowledged. Sectarian emotions run high, and are rising.
The recent events — such as the suicide bombing at an Imambargah in Dera Ghazi Khan in February and partially successful attempts of armed Jaish-i-Mohammad and other Deobandi activists to grab Barelvi mosques and madrasas in Bahawalpur in early April — are only a few examples of the growing sectarian tensions in the region.
Most people argue that sectarianism poses a great danger to the stability and peace of the area, a much bigger problem than the so-called Talibanisation of southern Punjab. “Sectarianism is a real threat here,” a senior lawyer in Muzaffargarh, who didn’t want to be identified, tells Dawn. “It has the potential to destabilise the entire province, in fact the whole of the country,” he says.
This is an assessment shared by the police. “The sectarian threat has been there for a very long time, and it is no secret,” says Bahawalpur Regional Police Officer Mushtaq Sukhera, who has been recently appointed in this post amid talk that the Punjab government is committed to dealing with the violent sectarian outfits with an iron hand.
Also no secret, the people in the area would intervene, is the police lethargy, and more significantly, the police’s tendency to collude with a sectarian group of their liking.
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