Macabre Slaughter

Macabre slaughterAs the wicked thugs gunned down 18 unsuspecting persons on their way to Iran in Turbat, their macabre slaughter has drawn the predictable usual reaction from our top official echelons.

Both the president and the prime minister have condemned the grisly murder, condoled with the bereaved families and asked for a report. And while the Balochistan chief minister says perpetrators of this bloodbath would be taken to task, the law-enforcement agencies say they have cordoned off the area to nab the slayers. But this must be the umpteenth mass slaughter in the beleaguered province. And every time we hear these official noises. Yet no official strategy or action play is in place as yet to stub out this gruesome holocaust. Who cares about the president’s or prime minister’s or, for that matter, anybody else’s condemnations and condolences? Who cares for their directive for a report? Who cares if the law-enforcers have cordoned off the area or not? The people want this bloodshed to be stopped, which both the federal and the provincial hierarchs have spectacularly failed to stop.Outrageously, none of the hierarchs seems any much pushed about this continuing carnage in Balochistan in reality. They dish out routinely condemnations, condolences and directives ritualistically, not any feelingly or any concernedly. Had they been really concerned about this mass slaughter, the beleaguered province would not have been in such a savage bloodshed. But they evidently are not. The facts are too stark. The 18 unfortunate victims of Turbat massacre were statedly Punjabis, being smuggled into Iran by human traffickers to make their way to Europe illegally. Now for pretty long, the Punjabi settlers in Balochistan are being roasted on the spit of a brutal ethnic cleansing. Hundreds of them have been murdered in Baloch-dominated areas. Many more have been harassed and intimidated into fleeing their hearths and homes. Quite a number of them are migrating to the province’s Pakhtun belt. And a lot more indeed are just leaving Balochistan altogether for good. It would be no surprising at all if this gruesome Turbat massacre too was part of that ethnic cleansing. Surely, the perpetrators do not keep prowling in the area in search of the quarries. If they really do, that should be a big black spot on the dereliction of the law-enforcers, and heads should roll in the provincial security apparatus for this unforgivable collapse. But the slaughter speaks of a more terrible reality. It tells tellingly that the thugs are well organised, with built-in systems of intelligence and information to act on. Evidently, the perpetrators were informed about the identity of their Turbat quarries, on which they pounced murderously. Yet more terribly, it bespeaks of another horrible reality. In the face of organised thugs is a state security apparatus in total disarray and chaos. What else could it be that the six thugs, brandishing deadly guns in their hands, came riding on three motorbikes without being intercepted anywhere by the law-enforcers, opened wild fire on their quarries having meals in a restaurant, and then made their escape good without being challenged anywhere on their way back to their lair? If that be it, what hope could one entertain even remotely if ever the province will be out of the throes? Obviously, the provincial security apparatus has no strategy at all to cope with the bloodletting having Balochistan in its lap so tightly. It has no action plan either to fight out this savagery. At best, it is reactive at the most. At worse, it is just lukewarm and apathetic to this bloodshed. And this is quite spine-chilling, to say the least. For, Balochistan is presently in the grip of not just a low-intensity insurgency. No lesser caught up it is in the clutches of ethnic cleansing, targeted killings, kidnappings for ransom, street crimes and a multiplicity of harrowing lawlessness. If the province is not pulled out from this vile morass now, it will be lost for ever to criminality. But that necessarily requires a strategy and an action plan, both of which the federal and provincial hierarchs have shown to be none of their fortes. And there lies the real rub and the real fear about Balochistan’s ultimate health as a peaceful place.As the wicked thugs gunned down 18 unsuspecting persons on their way to Iran in Turbat, their macabre slaughter has drawn the predictable usual reaction from our top official echelons. Both the president and the prime minister have condemned the grisly murder, condoled with the bereaved families and asked for a report. And while the Balochistan chief minister says perpetrators of this bloodbath would be taken to task, the law-enforcement agencies say they have cordoned off the area to nab the slayers. But this must be the umpteenth mass slaughter in the beleaguered province. And every time we hear these official noises. Yet no official strategy or action play is in place as yet to stub out this gruesome holocaust. Who cares about the president’s or prime minister’s or, for that matter, anybody else’s condemnations and condolences? Who cares for their directive for a report? Who cares if the law-enforcers have cordoned off the area or not? The people want this bloodshed to be stopped, which both the federal and the provincial hierarchs have spectacularly failed to stop.Outrageously, none of the hierarchs seems any much pushed about this continuing carnage in Balochistan in reality. They dish out routinely condemnations, condolences and directives ritualistically, not any feelingly or any concernedly. Had they been really concerned about this mass slaughter, the beleaguered province would not have been in such a savage bloodshed. But they evidently are not. The facts are too stark. The 18 unfortunate victims of Turbat massacre were statedly Punjabis, being smuggled into Iran by human traffickers to make their way to Europe illegally. Now for pretty long, the Punjabi settlers in Balochistan are being roasted on the spit of a brutal ethnic cleansing. Hundreds of them have been murdered in Baloch-dominated areas. Many more have been harassed and intimidated into fleeing their hearths and homes. Quite a number of them are migrating to the province’s Pakhtun belt. And a lot more indeed are just leaving Balochistan altogether for good. It would be no surprising at all if this gruesome Turbat massacre too was part of that ethnic cleansing. Surely, the perpetrators do not keep prowling in the area in search of the quarries. If they really do, that should be a big black spot on the dereliction of the law-enforcers, and heads should roll in the provincial security apparatus for this unforgivable collapse. But the slaughter speaks of a more terrible reality. It tells tellingly that the thugs are well organised, with built-in systems of intelligence and information to act on. Evidently, the perpetrators were informed about the identity of their Turbat quarries, on which they pounced murderously. Yet more terribly, it bespeaks of another horrible reality. In the face of organised thugs is a state security apparatus in total disarray and chaos. What else could it be that the six thugs, brandishing deadly guns in their hands, came riding on three motorbikes without being intercepted anywhere by the law-enforcers, opened wild fire on their quarries having meals in a restaurant, and then made their escape good without being challenged anywhere on their way back to their lair? If that be it, what hope could one entertain even remotely if ever the province will be out of the throes? Obviously, the provincial security apparatus has no strategy at all to cope with the bloodletting having Balochistan in its lap so tightly. It has no action plan either to fight out this savagery. At best, it is reactive at the most. At worse, it is just lukewarm and apathetic to this bloodshed. And this is quite spine-chilling, to say the least. For, Balochistan is presently in the grip of not just a low-intensity insurgency. No lesser caught up it is in the clutches of ethnic cleansing, targeted killings, kidnappings for ransom, street crimes and a multiplicity of harrowing lawlessness. If the province is not pulled out from this vile morass now, it will be lost for ever to criminality. But that necessarily requires a strategy and an action plan, both of which the federal and provincial hierarchs have shown to be none of their fortes. And there lies the real rub and the real fear about Balochistan’s ultimate health as a peaceful place