A senior police officer and three of his family members including his wife and son were gunned down by armed assailants in Quetta on Wednesday. According to police, the armed motorcyclists targeted SP Muhammad Ilyas and his family in the area of ‘Nawan Killi’ when they were travelling in a vehicle. The firing killed SP Muhammad Ilyas, his wife, son advocate Muhammad Adil and Abdul Wahab while daughter Marwa was injured. As usually it happens in such incidents of target killings, attackers once again managed to flee from the scene after committing the offence.
The targeted attacks against the law enforcement agencies have been on the rise. In the last week DIG Hamid Shakeel and two of his colleagues were martyred in a suicide bombing in Quetta. Last month, seven people, including six policemen, were killed in a blast. In August fifteen people, including eight soldiers, were martyred when a suicide bomber targeted a military truck near the Pishin bus stop in Quetta. Earlier in June, 14 people including seven policemen lost their lives in a suicide blast in Quetta’s Gulistan Road area. Last year in October in a major attack terrorist stuck at police training college in Quetta killing 61 cadets. Two months before that in another major terror incident terrorists targeted Quetta’s Civil Hospital killing at least 70 people, most of them were lawyers.
There seems to be no end to the suffering of the terror ravaged provincial capital of Balochistan. What boggles the mind is that how terrorists can strike in high security zones with impunity. Despite the city being at the mercy of terrorists and major strikes in the city becoming almost a routine the state has only ‘condolences’ to offer.
The relentless attacks show that despite some success in bringing peace to the terror ravaged province, there is a lot still left to do. The involvement of hostile foreign agencies in terror activities in the province is also a reality but ensuring that these hostile agencies are eliminated completely from the province is also the job of the state.
Law enforcement agencies and the provincial government should review their counter terror strategy to bring peace to the city that has already sacrificed a lot.
Current counter terror strategy with regards to Quetta has failed miserably.
Beyond Politics: Ensuring Judicial Independence for a Thriving Democracy
it is evident that some people believed that senior judges would be as "manageable" as our more experienced politicians. This...
Read more