Sectarianism has been eating into the vitals of this country

Experience of hindsight tells us that whenever any sectarian incident had occurred close to the month of Moharram anywhere in this country it had always had serious law and order repercussions during Moharram. The recent killing of a prominent shia lawyer in Dera Ismail Khan, therefore, cannot be brushed aside lightly . D. I. Khan, even otherwise, is a sensitive sectarian district with a very poor track record of sectarian harmony. During the coming Moharram , which is round the corner, the local administration would have to be extra cautious during religious congregations in D. IKhan in order to obviate possibility of any backlash to the above-mentioned incident.
There is no gainsaying the fact that if the SHOs of all the police stations start doing full justice to their job it would not be possible for the sectarian element to raise its ugly head anywhere in the country. The tragedy is that they don’t lay their hands on those religious big wigs who spit venom from the pulpit on those sects which don’t see eye to eye with them on many religious matters. Hate material continues to be published in the printing presses and the police is turning a blind eye to it. In many cases the hands of the policemen are tied because their political bosses won’t allow them to lay their hands on the lunatic fringe owing to political expediency. The sectarian element is in a minority but the problem is that it has taken refuge in some political and religious parties which have provided the religious extremists sanctuaries in their parties and they also protect them from police and administration. The successive political governments have been meting out kid-glove treatment to them because they had an eye on their vote bank during elections with the result that over the years they have become too big for their boots.
Time has certainly come when an urgent meeting of the Apex committee is convened in which leaders of those political and religious parties are invited who have given refuge to the extremist religious sectarian elders and they be categorically directed to remove their protective cover to them or else the government would be construed to believe that they too were patronising them. We must hold mirror to them so that they could see the black spots on their faces.