On
Wednesday morning as some 60 people, all members of Pakistan’s Ismaili Shia
community, packed into a bus in Karachi, six gunmen boarded the bus and within
minutes sprayed dozens of bullets into the passengers. At the end of 20 minutes
of shooting, 45 people were dead – they were shot at point-blank range – and a
dozen others injured.
At least three groups have claimed responsibility
for the Karachi massacre so far. These include the Pakistan Taliban, the
Islamic State (IS) and the Jundullah, an outfit that split from the Pakistan
Taliban last year and claimed links with the IS. The attack is the second
deadliest in Pakistan this year. In January, 62 people were killed in a suicide
bombing in a Shia mosque in Sind province.
Sectarian violence is routine in Pakistan and
accounts for most of the bloodletting. Places of worship and religious
processions are often targeted by extremist outfits. The Pakistani state
cannot escape responsibility for this sectarian bloodshed. Its emergence
as a state that favors the Sunni Muslim majority alienated the minorities. Gen
Zia ul Haq’s Islamization campaign not only provided momentum for Pakistan’s
Sunnization but also he set up Sunni militias. This prompted Shias to set up
their own paramilitary outfits. Shia-Sunni violence and counter-violence has
wracked Pakistan since.
While Shias account for the bulk of Pakistan’s
sectarian casualties, it is the Ahmadiyas who suffer the worst persecution.
Both Sunnis and Shias regard them as non-Muslim. Street protests by religious
hardliners resulted in the Ahmadiyas being declared ‘non-Muslim’ under the 1974
Constitution. It is illegal for an Ahmadiya to call himself a Muslim or his
place of worship a mosque and he could find himself in jail for using the
Muslim greeting ‘Assalamu alaikum’. The word ‘Muslim’ was erased from the
gravestone of Dr Abdus Salam, a Pakistani Nobel laureate, who was an Ahmadi.
Ahmadiyas have been at the receiving end of
countless attacks, whether in the form of abuse, beatings, killing or jailing.
In May 2010, for instance, 94 of them were killed and over 120 injured in
near-simultaneous attacks on two Ahmadiya mosques in Lahore.
Ismailis fear that they could end up like the
Ahmadiyas.
A small Islamic sect, Ismailis are led by the Aga
Khan. They regard the Koran as their religious text but Sunnis and Shias alike
detest them. They could be described as a Shia sub-sect as like the Shias, they
believe that Ali is Prophet Mohammed’s successor. This draws the ire of Sunni
hardliners.
However, they broke away from Shias centuries ago
when they adopted Ismail and not his younger brother as their seventh Imam. And
unlike the Shias for whom Moharram, which marks the battle of Karbala and the
death of Hussein, is the most important event of the year, Ismaili Shias give
more attention to celebrating the Aga Khan’s birthday and the anniversary of
his inauguration.
Sunni and Shia hardliners abhor the ‘unIslamic’
practices and ‘modern’ lifestyle of the Ismailis. It is likely that it is the
secularizing impact of Ismailis on Pakistan’s society, especially its education
that is bothering the country’s Islamic radicals and jihadi outfits. Schools
run by Ismailis are co-educational and the curriculum is secular. Like the
much-reviled Christians in Pakistan, Ismailis are looked upon as western
stooges.
Ismailis have been targets of violence in the past
as well. In 1982, for instance, in the Chitral area of northwestern Pakistan,
about 60 Ismailis were killed and their community buildings burned down. In
2004, there were violent clashes between Sunnis and Ismailis in Gilgit.
Targeting of Ismailis has increased over the past decade; an Ismaili
scholar-spiritual leader was assassinated and employees working on the Aga Khan
Foundation’s development projects have been attacked. The slaughter of Ismaili
bus passengers in Karachi on Wednesday takes this violence to a new worrying
level.
The violence together with the growing clamor for
declaring Ismailis as non-Muslims is worrying. Secular-minded Pakistanis must
speak up in their defense.
Dr. Sudha Ramachandran is an independent
journalist/researcher based in Bangalore, India who writes on South Asian
political and security issues.
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