Extremism gains ground in Sindh
Banned militant groups and new madrassas linked to them are changing the traditionally tolerant and progressive landscape of Sindh
On October 13, unidentified men fired at an Afghanistan-bound convoy of NATO fuel supply trucks in the Shikarpur district of Southern Sindh and burned six of them. Before that, on October 1, a group of 30 armed men attacked NATO trucks at the National Highway near Khairpur district, wounding four people and destroying 10 vehicles. NATO supply trucks had been attacked in Peshawar, Khyber Agency, Islamabad and Balochistan for years, but recently such attacks are also being carried out in Sindh.
Some believe that the motive of such attacks might be insurance claims and not terrorism, but a leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed that the men who attacked the NATO supply vehicles in Sindh were in fact militants and belonged to the TTP-linked mobile ‘Siyara Group’.
Sindh’s civil society and nationalist parties fear that militancy and religious intolerance are gaining grounds in the province. New madrassas (seminaries) and increased activities of banned jihadi organisations are affecting the traditional Sufi and progressive landscape of the province. ….
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Karachi has been the most violent and unsafe places in Pakistan since decades. Street crime has been at its peaks since decades. It is impossible to walk alone outside late at night, unlike other cities of Pak.
It is unheard of to travel around Sindh on a car, a hobby or pastime in other provinces.
The root cause of this disharmony must be pointed out rather than declaring this province clean, which is utterly not the case since the past few decades.