by Imtiaz Gul On what we can call another Black Sunday, terrorists mowed down at least 72 innocent citizens and critically injured dozens of others in Lahore. And in Rawalpindi, a few thousand pro-Mumtaz Qadri protestors left a trail of destruction from Liaquat Bagh to the Parliament House in Islamabad, where they finally descended for a sit-in. The rampage by Qadri protestors, according to the Punjab Metrobus Authority (PMA), caused losses worth Rs100 million to public infrastructure at and around the D-Chowk. The Lahore carnage is a continuation of the terror and destabilisation campaign. It is nearly impossible to preempt or prevent a terrorist from committing this heinous crime at a time and venue of his choice. But the violent assault by Qadri supporters and its aftermath — theoretically — was not difficult to predict and prevent. It again brings the capacity of state institutions and the will of the leadership into question. There are two big issues arising out of this, and they revolve around adequate preventive action and management of an evolving crisis. The funeral on 29th February should have been an eye-opener even for the politically blind. The emotionalism of the mourners and the possible fallout was imaginable from the word go. Why, then, allow them to congregate and descend into vandalism of the worst kind? Was it a security lapse, apathy and absence of mob management skills? Some observers interpreted the advance of the mob as “deliberate” to draw them into the remote D-Chowk, cut them off from the cellular networks and wear them down. It is a good postulation but why was the interior minister then fuming a day later and admonishing the entire police administration for allowing the protestors to get close to the Parliament House? Why did the Punjab police allow them to march on to Islamabad despite the knowledge of the militant intent, made evident by the 10 demands that the Tehreek-e-Labaik Ya Rasool (SAW) has tabled for bargaining? This charter...

by Harris Javaid At least 72 people have been killed and hundreds more injured by an explosion outside Lahore’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, where Christians celebrated Easter on Sunday. The death toll is expected to rise. Here is a list of major attacks by militant groups, including Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), since 2007: – 2007 – October 18: Bomb attacks targeting former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto kill 139 people in Karachi as she returns to Pakistan for the first time in eight years. She was killed in another gun and suicide attack on December 27. – 2008 – August 21: Twin suicide attacks kill 64 people outside Pakistan’s main arms factory in Wah near Islamabad. September 20: Sixty people are killed when a suicide truck bomb brings down part of the five-star Marriott hotel in Islamabad. – 2009 – October 28: A car bomb destroys a market in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 125 people. – 2010 – January 1: A suicide car bomb kills 101 people at a village volleyball game in the northwestern district of Bannu. March 12: Twin suicide attacks on the military in Lahore kill 57. May 28: Gun and suicide attackers storm mosques belonging to the Ahmadi religious minority in Lahore, killing 82 people. July 9: A suicide bomber blows himself up in a busy market in the northwestern Mohmand tribal district, killing 105 people. September 3: A suicide attack kills 59 at a Shia Muslim rally in the southwestern city of Quetta. November 5: A suicide bomber kills 68 people during Friday prayers in the northwest’s Darra Adam Khel area. – 2011 – April 3: Fifty die after two suicide bombers attack a Sufi shrine in the central town of Dera Ghazi Khan. May 13: Two suicide bombers kill at least 98 people outside a police cadet training centre in Charsadda. August 19: A suicide bomber hits a mosque during Friday prayers in the tribal district of Khyber, killing at least 43. – 2012 – January 11: Thirty-five die when a remote-controlled bomb detonates in a market in the northwestern...

by Pervez Hoodbhoy  THE other day I somehow wandered into an Islamabad store which specialises in Islamic honey. I was curious: how might it be different from, say, Australian honey? Would honey with a religious flavour earn me spiritual points as well? Although the storekeepers handed me a glossy 20-page brochure in Urdu, which I read later, I found their answers quite unsatisfactory. Still, the range of their honeys did seem rather appetising. I was about to open my wallet to buy some varieties when another product caught my eye: ‘Islamic Nuts’. On the shelves were cans of various sizes, inscribed with Quranic verses. The listed contents included pecans and filberts. But hang on! How could pecans and filberts ever have grown in desert climes? No one in this large store knew either their Urdu or Arabic equivalents. Besides, I was aware that filberts are named after St Philbert, a French saint. It seemed so fishy that I left the store without buying anything. But suppose I had indeed decided to buy honey and nuts. My choices for payment would have been two-fold. Apart from plain cash, I could have used my ordinary credit card. Else, my newer Sharia-compliant credit card. (To be honest, I really don’t know why I have two. However, I do recall that the Sharia card salesperson visited me in my office two to three years ago. She was so persuasive and persistent that I surrendered to a second one from her bank.) Business and commerce now freely use Islam as a brand name. Today I use both pieces of plastic, sometimes randomly. What’s the difference? With either I can purchase the same things or use an ATM. Plus, the Sharia-compliant one charges as much as the ordinary one. Most importantly, although the Sharia card refuses to call it interest, the annual rates charged by both banks are similar. After all, a bank is a bank. And banks exist to make profit, not dispense philanthropy. The wilful use of Islam to sell products continues to reach astonishing new heights every...

by Imtiaz Gul National reconciliation requires justice and trust The calm that prevails in Jaffna – the capitol of the northern province of Srilanka – masks a simmering resentment with the central government, unease with the presence and highhanded tactics of nearly 150,000 troops, and uncertainty about the future of the Tamil-dominated northern and eastern parts of the country. Political conversations here signal the urgency of a closure – or settlement – of issues that underlie the Tamil discontent.  A big lesson for all post-conflict societies, it seems, is that long-standing causes of conflict do not go away if they are solved only through hard power and cosmetic measures. They see every Tamil as a potential separatist Jaffna and other northern territories, though slowly recovering from the unrest of Tamil insurgency, continue to see demands for investigation into the bloody assault against the Tamil group LTTE in May 2009, which also took out its iconic leader Prabhakaran in controversial circumstances. Justice Vigneshwaran, who became the consensus chief minister of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) –the Sri Lankan equivalent of the Irish Sinn Fein in 2013 – is spearheading the northern province’s recovery and return to normalcy.  In a meeting with a delegation consisting of Pakistani, Kashmiri (both sides) and Japanese academics, activists and intellectuals, at his extremely austere and virtually unguarded office, Vigneshwaran laid bare some of the facts surrounding the rise of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), and explained the evolution of the situation since Prabhakaran’s elimination. After Prabhakaran’s death, the Sri Lankan army had declared victory against the separatist outfit that had traumatized the entire peninsula for nearly three decades through spectacular land and amphibian Kamikaze attacks. The quiet lush green Tamil areas – such as Vaupunia, Kilinochchi, Puthukkudiyiruppa and Pudumathalan, all situated between the roughly...