The Khuzdar attack
The attack on the Shah Noorani shrine in Khuzdar which killed over 60 people and wounded at least a hundred others seemed designed to inflict maximum casualties. The attack took place on a Saturday when over a thousand people, mainly from Karachi, were visiting the shrine. The timing of the blast, when visitors were performing the dhamaal in the courtyard of the shrine, would seem to confirm that. Responsibility for the attack has been claimed by the Islamic State, although the government has not yet commented on the identity or group affiliation of the attackers. The attacks come just three months after the suicide bombing at the Government Hospital in Quetta, where mourners were gathered after the earlier killing of the president of the Balochistan Bar Association. In that attack, too, the Islamic State had claimed responsibility although the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar also said they carried it out. Then, in October, militants belonging to a faction of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi killed at least 60 people at a police academy. The first question raised by attacks such as these is one of security. Shrines, such as the Abdullah Shah Ghazi mazaar in Karachi, have been a target of militant groups before and law enforcement should ideally have been searching every person who entered the Shah Noorani shrine. The DSP in the area said the shrine came under the jurisdiction of the Balochistan Levies but they did not have a system in place to check for explosives. That even now, after so many hundreds of attacks, security is far from foolproof shows that we still lack the capability to defend against the militant menace.
Given what we know about militant groups, it is possible they were just trying to kill as many civilians as possible – especially since they were congregated at a shrine. The attack took place just one day before Nawaz Sharif and Raheel Sharif visited Gwadar for a ceremony marking the opening of the port. Even if the CPEC was not uppermost in the minds of the militants, if such attacks take place regularly they could put the project in jeopardy. For now, the government needs to ensure there are no further security lapses. While security at shrines has been stepped up, it is obviously impossible to guard each and every one of the many in the country. The problem is one linked directly to the failure to curb groups that perpetuate militancy and extremism. The details of the attack at Khuzdar are still emerging, and there is some lack of clarity on whether it constituted a suicide bombing or an explosive device placed at the premises. Regardless of these details, the fact is that another blow has been delivered to our security setup. With every such blast we continue to become ever more in danger of losing our freedom to access our spaces of heritage.
Demonitisation plans
Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi’s announcement about the withdrawal of higher denomination notes seems to have found its admirers in Pakistan. A PPP senator last week submitted a resolution to the Senate asking for the withdrawal of Rs1,000 and Rs5,000 notes from circulation. The logic behind such a move seems to be curbing corruption, money laundering, tax evasion and other black market practices. While India and Pakistan both genuinely have a tax payment problem, forcing people to switch to smaller denomination notes may not necessarily lead to more tax payers. As shown in the case of India, it will lead to financial chaos and lots of unhappy citizens despite the praise that analysts seem to wish to lend to such a measure. The real impact of such a measure will be on consumers who will have to carry bulky amounts of cash or switch to cashless methods, which are still rarely available in the Subcontinent’s markets. The problem is that currency values in Pakistan and India are so low that a Pakistani Rs5,000 note or an Indian Rs1,000 note has barely any purchasing power attached to it. Coming at under $50 value and $25 value, anyone wanting to use either currency to launder money or evade taxes already has to keep a substantial stack of cash in storage.
It should not be difficult to understand the relative insignificance of such amounts. After the Pakistani government announced a withholding tax on bank transactions, prize bonds became much more popular for black market trading. Modi’s decision to withdraw the Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes in India cannot be understood as a victory against tax evasion and corruption. Instead, it is another desperate move by a government that is unable to fulfill the big election promises it made, including the promise of a crackdown on black money transactions. Moreover, such measures also fundamentally misunderstand the nature of corruption. The most serious types of corruption occur at the higher echelons of government, not in the hands of the petty bureaucrat. Taking out a certain denomination of currency notes from the market is merely a cosmetic move. It is certainly not one that should be followed by Pakistan. Clamping down on corruption requires much more serious efforts. It is unlikely that the huge amounts stashed in offshore bank accounts were moved via petty cash. If the Indian or Pakistani governments are serious about clamping down on corruption and tax evasion, they need to do that through strengthening taxation and anti-corruption authorities. This is something neither government seems to be serious about.