To combat the scourge of terrorism, all segments of society, including the government, the public, and state institutions, must band together.
A blast inside a mosque shook Peshawar’s Police Lines area on Monday, killing at least 32 people and injuring 147, according to officials. The mosque is part of a complex that also houses the provincial police force’s headquarters and a counter-terrorism unit.
The Peshawar police headquarters is in one of the city’s most tightly controlled areas, housing intelligence, and counter-terrorism bureaus as well as the regional secretariat.
The country has recently seen a sharp increase in terrorist attacks across the country. To combat the scourge of terrorism, all segments of society, including the government, the public, and state institutions, must band together.
Any step in this direction, however, would be insufficient without first reforming the criminal justice system and breaking the link between extremism and politics in order to ensure that the law applies equally to all. Furthermore, education reforms are urgently required.
Fifty-two people were killed in one day in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, not by disease, war, or conflict but by careless accidents. On Sunday, 42 people were killed when a passenger bus crashed into a ravine in Lasbela, Balochistan.
The bus was travelling from Quetta to Karachi, and according to local authorities, the accident occurred while the bus was making a U-turn at high speed. On the same day, ten children died in Kohat when their boat capsized in Tanda Dam Lake.
These deaths will most likely be mourned as unavoidable tragedies for a short time before everyone moves on. But that’s precisely the point: These aren’t unavoidable tragedies. They were not natural disasters, but rather accidents caused by negligence, apathy, and greed.
These and other accidents raise concerns about how we manage road and boat safety in the country. Thousands of people are killed on Pakistan’s roads every year; the Motor Vehicles Ordinance 1965 does not include any regulations for testing vehicle fitness, so motor vehicle inspectors have a lot of leeway in passing vehicles as fit to drive.
Add to this a risky driver—particularly those who drive public commuter vehicles—and we have a dangerous cocktail waiting to happen. We should ensure that only vehicles with certification based on international standards that prove they are not a safety hazard are allowed to be used.
More broadly, the country desperately needs better driver education. Stoplights are regarded as mere suggestions, and speed limits may as well be used to advise drivers on the minimum speed they must maintain. Traffic cops appear to be more interested in collecting bribes than issuing tickets to deter dangerous drivers.
Driver’s licences are available for a fee, but no qualifications are required, as our bus and truck drivers demonstrate on a daily basis. The anarchy on our roads reflects the absence of a regulatory state. People do whatever they want because they know there will be no consequences for their recklessness.
The same can be said for boat safety, which is even less regulated. We are jeopardised in areas ranging from road safety to boat safety to factory safety to food inspections because no one has the incentive to follow regulations. How many children must die before we realise the consequences of our lawlessness?
