Another Sufi shrine targeted: growing fanaticism will jeopardize existence of Pakistan!!

A suicide attacker blew himself up at the entrance to the shrine of Pir Rakhyal Shah in the Fatehpur area of Jhal Magsi district on October 5, killing at least 19 people and injuring over 30 others. The blast was so powerful that it was heard several kilometres away from the blast site. The bodies of the victims were scattered in a 200-metre radius.

This is the second attack at the shrine, located some 350km east of Quetta in the Nasirabad division. In March 2005, over 50 people were killed and more than 70 injured in a bomb blast on the shrine premises.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing of the Sufi shrine.

Official sources said that several hundred devotees from various parts of Balochistan and Sindh had arrived at the shrine to participate in the congregation held every 15th day of the Islamic calendar. “The devotees were still gathering at the shrine when the powerful explosion occurred,”

Sufi Hazrat Rakhyal Shah was born in 1262 Hijri (aprox 1852AD) in the district of Mirpur, Baluchistan. His father was Hazrat Noor Shah who was the descendent of Hazrat Ali. His eldest brother Sufi Abdul Nabi Shah was the disciple of Fakir Jaanullah Shah, a strong and famous devotee of Sufi Innayatullah Shah.

Pakistan's Sufis under attack from Islamic hard-liners

Pakistan faces a renewed threat of rising Islamic extremism, vigilantism, attacks on minorities and a reluctance to face up to how these threats are internally rather than externally inspired.

Since its inception in 1947, Pakistan has made a deliberate and conscious decision to use religious identity as a tool to further its national security interests. Although a religious identity, if not exclusionary and fanatic, may not be a problem, the Pakistani version is intolerant, extreme and murderous. Not only could this situation become an existential threat to Pakistan itself, it is a world menace. Pakistan is a nuclear power outside of the Non Proliferation Treaty. Any kind of nuclear device in the hands of fanatics is a serious danger to the world as a whole.

How did Islamic radicalization begin in Pakistan? For most of its history since partition from India in 1947, the country has never had a democratic secular system. The most powerful institutions of Pakistan have always been the military and its affiliate security organization, the Inter Service Intelligence. These institutions have pushed a Pakistani identity rooted in Islam. This identity began to take an ugly turn starting with General Zia-ul-Haq. Zia, the head of the Pakistani Army in 1977, overthrew the elected government of Zufiqar Ali Bhutto. With the monetary help of Saudi Arabia, Zia began a major, but quiet campaign of Islamization. The number of religious schools proliferated. These schools were staffed by ignorant and fanatical Wahabi type teachers.

The result was that a large number of children were brought up who did not learn much about Islam, but learned how to be intolerant and violent. Zia also imposed rules that women should cover their heads on television, and he established an outdated and out of context Islamic system of punishment for criminals, among other edicts.

Short of any serious effort to reign in and de-radicalize the killers, Pakistan’s existence will be in jeopardy. The terrorism and instability which has already engulfed the region will spread further. The menace will become global if any of these radical groups get its hands on Pakistani nuclear weapons or fissionable material.