The Body Count

AS it tries to survive the latest political crisis, the Benazir Bhutto regime is faced with a fresh spate of sectarian violence. The locus seems to have moved back to Punjab. In the last three weeks, target attacks by Sunni and Shia extremists have claimed 20-odd lives. The latest round began on August 5 when a Shia civil servant was gunned down in Sargodha, Punjab. The Shias retaliated on August 14: gunmen attacked a group of Sunni Independence Day marchers in Karachi, killing 12 people and injuring scores. The reprisal took many Shia lives in Vehari, Punjab.

The Anjuman-e-Sipah-e-Sahaba-e-Pakistan (ASSP) of the Sunnis and the Sipah-e-Mohammad of the Shias have killed hundreds in the last two years in Karachi and Punjab. The government says all campaigns to destabilise it are accompanied by sectarian or ethnic violence. They link the present spurt of violence with the Opposition stir to oust Benazir.

Headquartered in Punjab, the two groups have modern weapons, and the politicised Punjab administration is not equipped to deal with them. The administration is hamstrung by a strange power structure. The Governor retains the power to post and transfer officials, leaving a minority party Chief Minister with few functions. The CM's hands are further tied by the presence of a Senior Minister, from the majority PPP, who he is supposed to consult on all decisions. Administrative chaos is only the logical outcome.

The ASSP and Sipah-e-Mohammad are becoming well-entrenched in national politics. Maulana Azam Tariq, a key ASSP leader currently under arrest along with others on murder charges, is a member of the National Assembly. The ASSP also has two members in the Punjab Assembly. As for cadres, unless the two groups are totally disarmed and their sources of weapons blocked, these armies are bound to find new recruits.