IN light of Muharram processions, according to a recent news report, more than 6,000 police personnel will be deployed in three districts of the Hazara division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Given the reality of attacks on processions in the past, and the sheer number of targeted attacks on members of the Shia community, it is understandable why security would be heightened this month. While there has been greater security in the country in recent years, there have been sporadic attacks that undermine the relative peace in the country. On the eve of Independence Day, gunmen walked up to a traffic policeman and shot him dead in Karachi. The fifth policeman to be targeted in the city in a span of just one month, Head Constable Syed Mohammad Ali Rizvi was said to not have been in uniform on the day he was murdered; authorities suspect it to be a sectarian killing.

Pakistan has a brutal history of sectarian killings. From pilgrims and schoolchildren to doctors and intellectuals, thousands of Shias have been killed for their beliefs since the 1980s. The bloodshed intensified in the 1990s, and perhaps saw its bloodiest phase in the 2000s, with the rise of the Pakistani Taliban and other sectarian groups. In December 2009, an Ashura procession in Karachi became the target of a suicide explosion, killing around 40 people. In September 2010, three explosions targeting a procession in Lahore led to the death of another 40 people; two days later, another 73 were killed in a bomb blast targeting an Al Quds procession. In February 2012, 18 predominantly Shia passengers on a bus travelling from Rawalpindi to Gilgit-Baltistan were separated on the basis of their identity and shot dead by militants dressed in army uniform. In May 2013, the Hazara community of Quetta was ferociously targeted, with 115 people killed on Alamdar Road; and another 110 killed a month later in Hazara Town. Clearly, the authorities cannot afford to let down their guard even for a moment during Muharram.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2020