...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.
a year ago. As it turned out, it was the prelude to a massacre, the worst attack against the Christian community in Pakistain, when twin suicide kabooms at the end of the service claimed around 90 lives and injured over 100 people. The carnage sparked a wave of revulsion among Paks, and expressions of solidarity with the community were swift in coming. Although attacks on such scale along religious lines have not occurred since then, the war on minorities in this country grinds on relentlessly.
In fact, it could be said that it is expanding, claiming yet more victims and also from communities hitherto left comparatively unscathed by religious extremism. In Peshawar itself, the small Sikh community has been repeatedly targeted this year. Five Sikhs have been killed in as many months, with two fatalities in the first week of September alone. In a remote corner of 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...
, gunnies attacked a group of Zikris in their place of worship, killing six and injuring several others. Although persecution of the Zikris -- a little-known Islamic sect -- had surfaced during Gen Zia's time, when religious extremism was actively harnessed and patronised to further strategic objectives, this was the first direct attack in more than two decades on their lives. Meanwhile,
...back at the secret hideout, Scarface Al sneeringly put his proposition to little Nell...
a reprehensible conspiracy of silence by the state surrounds the murder of Ahmadis -- whose persecution is institutionalised in Pakistain -- even when a woman and two girls from that community were killed in a ghastly mob attack in July. The crux of the problem is the state's refusal to take proactive steps to control the menace of religious extremism: banned/extremist organizations extend their influence to areas so far untouched by communal strife; hate speech is freely disseminated; the blasphemy law is used as a tool of persecution; school curricula contain derogatory references to minority communities. While the government continues in a state of torpor, this fire has begun to consume the very foundations of the country.