Author: Editorial
Publication: The Dawn
Date: July 6, 2004
If the Karachi police's claim that
they are looking for two young educated women as potential suicide bombers
is true, it speaks of a disturbing trend of jihadist notions and ideas
gaining influence among Pakistan's educated middle class.
Indeed, this is not the first case
of its kind. Some time back, at the height of the Wana operation, the security
agencies were said to be looking for a foreign woman, reportedly of Uzbek
origin, who had been entrusted by the extremists with the task of training
women suicide bombers.
Perhaps there is a link between
that foreigner and the case of the two missing women the Karachi police
are looking for. It also means that the government must prepare itself
to deal with the possibility that there might be more such women out there,
trained and brainwashed to become suicide bombers.
According to reports, the girls
come from a fairly educated family and their father is a working professional.
They are said to have been trained as jihadists by their uncle who is now
under arrest and the police say that he was the mastermind behind the recent
suicide bombings in Karachi.
The target could be anything from
an imambargah to the office of a senior government or police official.
Clearly something is amiss somewhere - in our education system, in our
socio-political ambience, in the way religion is taught to the younger
generation, or perhaps in all the three - so that more and more young people
are resorting to violence, murder and mayhem in the name of religion.
The problem in dealing with this
situation is that law alone is not enough except as a preventive and punitive
mechanism. The larger part of the responsibility to enlighten society on
the need to stand up against the misguided notions and ideas of a small
group of jihadi elements and the danger that these pose to the peace, security
and stability of civil society rests with the country's intelligentsia.
They must come forward and enlighten the people on this score.