[Dawn] Amid international outrage at the massacre of over 80 people in a suicide kaboom at a church in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
on Sunday, the government vowed in the National Assembly on Monday to "pursue" the criminal masterminds of the act, before a mournful house too unanimously called for bringing the perpetrators to justice.
But Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said in a speech to the house that due to lack of intercepts so far, he was unsure about the authenticity of a claim of responsibility for the attack made by a group called Junoodul Hafsa, a faction of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP).
However,
some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves...
he assured the house "what people are behind this (act), we will pursue them with full force of intelligence and security forces" and that God-willing they would meet an "exemplary" retribution.
Besides condemnation of the attack by leaders of most parliamentary groups in the house, opposition leader Khursheed Shah assured the government of full support of opposition parties in pursuing those responsible for the attack in the same way as they gave it a "mandate" in a Sept 9 "all-party conference" to initiate peace dialogue with "all stakeholders" in order to eliminate bad boy violence in the country.
"Even also, all parties are ready to give the government a mandate that you decide, pursue them, and the opposition and 18 crore people of Pakistain will stand behind you," he said.
But a question mark arose over the fate of the Sept 9 initiative after four Taliban-claimed attacks on security forces on Sept 15, one of which killed an army major-general, Sanauullah Khan Niazi, along with an accompanying lieutenant-colonel and a lance naik in the Upper Dir district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
, and the Taliban put forth some difficult pre-conditions for talks such as a general amnesty for Taliban fighters, release of their prisoners and withdrawal of troops to their barracks in the bad boy-infested tribal belt.
While the last Sunday attack drew condemnation from Pope Francis as well as government leaders and ambassadors of several western nations, the National Assembly suspended its normal business for the day as part of a three-day national mourning, to discuss and adopt a joint resolution to condemn what it called a "heinous, brutal and inhuman terrorist attack", which it said was "an attack not only against the Christian community but against all Paks".
Earlier, on a suggestion from a politician from Peshawar, Ghulam Ahmed Bilour of the opposition Awami National Party, members of the house and visitors in the galleries stood up to observe a minute's silence for mostly Christians among over 81 fatalities, which was followed by a Fateha prayer for Mohammedan casualties of the attack, which, according to the house resolution, maimed more than 137 people.
Expressing solidarity with the Christian community, the resolution demanded that the federal and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provincial governments "take all necessary measures to safeguard the rights of non-Mohammedans as laid down in the Koran and Sunnah and provided in the constitution of Pakistain", provide the best medical facilities to the injured and security to all places of worship, particularly those belonging to non-Mohammedans, and "bring the perpetrators of these suicide kabooms to justice".
Chaudhry Nisar praised Christian community leaders in Peshawar for their patience and said he saw during his visit to the city on Sunday. He said the government would call a meeting of Christian community leaders from all over the country to discuss what he called a national policy to provide security to their institutions.
He said the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government of Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf
...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is
Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations....
(PTI) was formulating its own plan and that "we would also like to involve" the Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
provincial governments to play a role in a federal-level security committee.
Though speakers from all parties condemned the attack, varying degrees of vehemence about dealing with terrorism was evident, some of them still pinning hopes in a dialogue.