Dawn: I.A. RahmanWHILE a feeling of relief at escaping any big disaster on Muharram 9 and 10 is justified, the moment calls for sober reflection on the threat to citizens’ life and liberty and the means of countering it.
It is said that at several places the terrorists’ designs to cause indiscriminate killing were frustrated by timely detection of their plots and the seizing of weapons and explosives.
A major threat to Karachi is reported to have been averted by the capture of a truck full of explosives. Laudable though these preventive actions are, it is not clear whether such successes could have been achieved in normal circumstances, that is, without the unprecedented scale of law-enforcement agencies’ mobilisation witnessed last weekend.
It is another matter that the killing of 12 persons in D.I. Khan — seven on Saturday and five on Sunday — was not considered a major tragedy. That indicates the level of society’s callousness and its acceptance of belief-related violence.