The Quetta attack has shocked and angered Pakistan, and as usual, Islamabad has been quick to exploit it, accusing India of promoting anti-Pakistan terrorism
Quetta, capital of Pakistan's Balochistan Province, is no stranger to bomb blasts, other forms of terrorist attacks and sectarian strife. Earlier, one person was killed and five others injured on July 22 when a remote-controlled explosion was triggered. Even earlier, at least 15 people were killed in a blast apparently targeting policemen posted outside a polio vaccination centre on January 13. Eleven persons were killed and 23 injured in another explosion in a bus on January 13 this year. More examples can be cited. But except perhaps the explosion on February 16, 2013, which left 11 persons dead and 220 wounded, in the Hazara town in the outskirts of the city, no other terrorist till date has had such a massive impact as the suicide bomb blast at the civil hospital on Monday, which killed over 70 persons and wounded over 100.
The blast, which was heard up to a radius of five kilometres, was aimed at causing massive devastation. According to reports, the suicide bomber was carrying around eight kilos of explosives packed with ball bearings and shrapnel to inflict maximum casualties. And so it did. Except two journalists, the victims were lawyers who had come to the hospital to mourn the killing of Bilal Anwar Kasi, president of the Balochistan Bar Association, who was shot at by two motor cycle-borne terrorists, when he was travelling to work in his car. He was removed to the hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.
The incident has caused widespread shock and anger in Pakistan and prompted the authorities to thunder against terrorism and express their unshakeable resolve to crush it. Their words, however, sound hollow because similar pronouncements, made in the aftermath of all such occasions, have been repeatedly belied by a lack of commensurate action. This in turn is a result of the policy of Pakistani civil and military establishments to use terrorism as an instrument of state policy, particularly toward India and Afghanistan which has led to official patronage of organisations like the Jamaat-ud-Dawa'ah, lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Hizbul Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Afghan Taliban, which it unleashes against these two countries. There are two objectives here. The first is the installation of a pliant, subservient Government in Kabul which will allow the use of Afghanistan's territory to provide Pakistan with “strategic depth”. The second is the balkanisation of India, which is the goal of its strategic doctrine, and the realisation of which has to begin with the annexation of Kashmir by it.
Unfortunately for Pakistan, the international community is increasingly cognizant of its patronage of terror organisations and designs against India and Afghanistan. This, in turn, has prompted Islamabad to resort to all kinds of diversionary moves, including charging India with promoting terrorism against it, to cover its tracks. This it did after Monday's outrage as well. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat-ur-Ahrar claimed responsibility for it through an email sent by its spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan. Around the same time, the website of the Islamic State, Amaq, has stated, “A martyr from the Islamic State detonated his explosive belt at a gathering of justice ministry employees and Pakistani policemen in the city of Quetta.” If this provides yet another indication of the intensifying struggle for influence and salience among Islamist terror organisations, Pakistan's unfortunate effort to use Monday's devastating tragedy in Quetta to score propaganda points against India is clear from the allegation by Balochistan's Chief Minister, Sanaullah Zehri, that the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) was behind the attack! The Province's Home Minister, Sarfraj Bugti further alleged that the administration had substantial evidence that R&AW was stoking violence in the province by bankrolling terrorists!
If India was playing a tit-for-tat game in this gory theatre of the absurd, it might have retorted with the allegation that Pakistan's Directorate-General of Inter-Services Intelligence, had staged the attack to discredit New Delhi. That it has not done so shows the difference between a dignified, responsible country and one that is a state sponsor of terrorism and is singularly lacking in scruples.