Global Issues
PAKISTAN: Vibrant City Loses Colour, Verve amid Escalating Attacks
Lahore, known to the world as 'the city of the live-hearted' has been in the grip of extreme fear since Oct. 15, the day when three suicide attacks took place here simultaneously. Suicide bombers targeted two police training centres and the regional office of the Federal Investigation Agency, leaving 17 people dead and 22 others injured.
Since that day the whole city has turned into a virtual battlefield guarded by armed gunmen at pickets, roadsides, government offices, markets, schools and what not.
Crowded markets, food outlets and recreational parks—once the hallmark of life in Lahore—wear a deserted look.
The people of Lahore are known for their exemplary resilience against all odds, but this time the situation is totally different. Fear is all over the place, especially written on the faces of the locals whose smiles have vanished.
Sheikh Mushtaq, a grain merchant in Akbari Mandi-Lahore’s biggest wholesale foodmarket—tells IPS that what worries everyone is the change in the terrorists’ strategy. 'This time they are going for soft targets. They have attacked a university and a busy marketplace in other parts of the country. They can go for a repeat of that in Lahore as well,' he says.
Mushtaq adds the business activity in the market is reduced almost by half of what it was a month ago. People are wary of coming here, he says, adding that even if they want to, they are not allowed to park their vehicles close to the market.
The situation is the same in all the wholesale markets situated in the densely populated Walled City, also called the Old Lahore.
Nadeem Aslam, owner of a department store in Iqbal Town, says he has stopped visiting the wholesale market. 'Now I place an order by phone and get delivery at my place,' he tells IPS. 'It costs me more, and sometimes the quality is also not the same, but nothing is more precious than my life.'
The new spate of terrorist attacks in Lahore has come after a lull of almost four and a half months. The last major terrorist activity in the city, before the Oct. 15 attacks, broke out on May 26. At that time suicide bombers had targeted the offices of emergency response police and the country’s top spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, leading to more than 20 deaths and at least 100 injuries.
The city’s popular eateries also depict what the people are going through. Hardly a month back diners would stand in queues and endlessly wait for their turn. 'Now we stand in the middle of the road and woo every passerby, asking him or her to grace our place,' says Mukhtar Ahmed, a waiter at a fried fish shop in Baghbanpura, Lahore.
He says people do come to the shop, but hardly anybody sits for longer than needed. 'They quickly devour the food and walk away,' he tells IPS. Ahmed adds that in the past people would hang around there for hours and have fun besides food. 'Now the laughter is nowhere; everybody is tense.'
According to Ahmed whenever fear seems to subside, some mishap takes place anywhere in the country and creates panic among the masses. The images of the blast and the damage shown by television channels in real time have a terrifying effect on the people, he adds.
A commuter traveling on the roads of Lahore is bound to see endless construction going up everywhere. Whether it be a government office, public or private school, popular market or a luxury hotel, construction workers are seen raising boundary walls, laying barbed wires and building bunkers.
'It has been made binding on occupants of many private premises, including schools, to install walkthrough gates and close-circuit cameras, hire private security guards, raise or construct boundary walls and equip their staff with metal detectors,' says Babar Ali, an inspector with Punjab police.
He says all the citizens have been asked to carry their valid identification with them, which can be asked for anytime. Besides, Ali says, the general public must also look out for suspicious people in their neighbourhood and inform the police about them without delay.
The law enforcers in Lahore suspect that terrorists may try to take the students of some schools hostage and demand the release of their accomplices. This has led the provincial government to increase security at government schools and compel private ones to arrange for their own.
The Lahore police found dried dates, roasted chickpeas and water bottles from the suicide attackers’ rucksacks left at the blast sites on Oct 15. This indicated that they wanted to hold the police recruits and trainees inside the attacked buildings as hostages.
Kashif Mirza, president of All Pakistan Private Schools Owners’ Association, thinks it is undue on the part of the government to issue such strict security guidelines to private schools. Very few schools can bear this additional cost without passing on the burden to the parents, he tells IPS.
Mirza says the government has instructed them not to increase the school fees on this ground. He says parents are worried but mainly due to the government’s failure to detect terrorist movement. The schools have also been stopped from operating bus services to pick and drop their students, he adds.
Zahid Ali, a sales executive at a life insurance company, says he has no choice but to visit at least a dozen people in different parts of the city. 'I am selling them life insurance policies at a time when I am not sure whether I’ll live another day,' he says.
Ali tells IPS that his mother or wife calls him after every hour asking about his well-being. 'They want me to quit my field job and look for a desk-based one which they think is safer. I have no choice. Jobs don’t come easy these days,' he says.
Faced with a major threat this time, even the journalist community of Lahore is worried about its own safety. The Lahore Place Club—a meeting place of thousands of journalists, their acquaintances, and the general public—is rarely visited even by its members.
Majid Husain, a council member of the club, tells IPS that if he has to go to the place at all, it is only to collect some documents and leaves shortly. He says terrorists have warned several media organisations of the dire consequences of not mentioning them, ‘mujahideen’ (warriors waging a holy war), in their reports.
Husain says the military operation in restive South Waziristan—main bastion of Al Qaeda-linked Tehrik-e-Taliban, or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, an alliance of radical Islamist groups that is fighting the government—has forced many terrorists to run for safer places down country.
These terrorists are targeting ordinary human beings in revenge and a bid to pressure the government to stop the military operation, he adds. He soon bids goodbye, saying there is a major threat of a suicide attack in Lahore that day and he does not want to take any risk.
Husain’s fear is not unfounded at all. Hardly an hour passes by when two suicide bombers blow themselves up when their car is stopped by policemen at an entry point to the city. Luckily, there is no casualty, yet it brought injuries to 20 individuals.
© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service