divtext-align: center""'We risk our lives even when we pray'
By Mujahid Ali, Correspondent
Karachi: Security is being stepped up at mosques across the country.
Worshippers pass through electronic metal detectors and past the piercing eyes of private security guards as they enter a Shiite mosque in an affluent neighbourhood of Karachi.
They park their vehicles away from the mosque's main gate, which remains protected by iron bars to deter any car bomber from approaching too near the target, located in the affluent Defence Housing Authority neighbourhood.
"We have to risk our lives even when we go the house of God," said Ghulam Hussain, a middle-aged businessman belonging to Shiite community. "There should be no guards, no guns here, but now we cannot even pray without them," he told Gulf News.
These security measures at the mosque are not the result of the recent suicide bombing which killed a prominent Shiite leader Allama Hasan Turabi and his 10-year-old nephew.
These arrangements were made a few years ago when the phenomenon of attacks on places of worships started in Pakistan that has so far claimed lives of hundreds of innocent people across the country.
After every fresh assault these security measures are reviewed and guards made to stand more alert for at least a few weeks.
And it is not just the Shiite Muslim mosques which are protected like this.
Scores of Sunni Muslim mosques, especially belonging to those under the control of Deobandi clerics are also well guarded.
Private and police guards protect them round the clock "especially during prayers times. Even guards body search people coming to attend Friday prayers when the attendance is much bigger than the normal prayers.
Leading clerics and religious leaders also live under the protection of the gun in Karachi all the time where several top clerics have been murdered in targeted killings, including bombings in the last couple of years.
The most devastating suicide bombing in April this year killed more than 50 people, including top Sunni clerics belonging to the Barelvi sect at a religious congregation at the historic Nishtar Park.
Police say that suicide attacks was a new phenomenon, which started after Pakistan joined the US led war on terrorism in 2001.
Since then suicide bombers have hit more than two dozen times in various parts of the country but most such attacks occurred in Karachi.
Even President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz were made the target of suicide bombings in Punjab province but luckily, they escaped unhurt. The other targets of suicide attackers mainly remained the Western concern, including US Consulate, and religious minorities especially the Shiite Muslims.
"It is very difficult to stop a suicide bomber," said Manzoor Mughal, a deputy inspector general of police, assigned to investigate the latest bombing that killed the Shiite cleric.
"But we are trying our best to prevent such attacks," he said.
But investigators say this is an impossible mission.
"The stringent security measures are not allowing them to go near their big targets so far," said an investigator on condition of anonymity. "So the attackers are now going for the soft targets. Obviously, no government can protect every mosque, and cleric. We are in a fix."
Rauf Siddiqui, the Sindh province home minister, has already warned that there were fears of more suicide attacks and police officials say they were struggling to pre-empt them. Local Pro-Al Qaida and pro-Afghan Taliban militants are behind the suicide attacks, investigators say.
Shadowy extremist Sunni Muslim group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which was banned by the government a few years ago, is behind most of these attacks.
Although several of its key leaders have been arrested or killed by police, the group continue to strike back after regular intervals from Karachi to Quetta.
"The group has its tentacles in scores of Islamic schools, from where they pick their recruits," admitted a senior police official on the condition of anonymity. "But taking action against these institutions remains a tricky option because of the fears of reaction from the powerful religious lobby."
Many residents of Karachi say that they live in a state of constant fear.
"It seems that there is no law, no protection for us. Criminals and terrorists are striking at will," said Saima Andleeb, a housewife. "We just want to live in peace, but the government is failing in fulfilling this very basic responsibility," she added.
Source : Gulf News
www.gulfnews.com