Marginalizing Parachinar

The tragic sectarian clashes in Rawalpindi on the eve of Muharram are reflective of the lack of tolerance and mutual respect among the various communities living in Pakistan.

It was unfortunate that instead of pacifying the charged emotions, religious fanatics added fuel to the fire through inflammatory propaganda. Social networking websites were flooded with rumours and hate speech, which led to escalation of violence and hatred. Due to the imposition of curfew, reporters did not have access to the riots that broke out in various parts of the country, and the events were misreported.

One report blamed “outsiders” for the mayhem in Rawalpindi. They were leading the Muharram procession, according to the report, and attacked the mosque after the cleric’s provocative speech. These outsiders, the report claims, were religious hardliners from Parachinar.

The report singles out the people of Parachinar, and exaggerates, through a questionable source, the number of “newcomers” from Parachinar in Rawalpindi and Islamabad to 20,000. It is left to the imagination of the reader how many of these 20,000 citizens are hardliners. Adding insult to injury, the report said these hardliners turned Rawalpindi into a ‘mini-Parachinar’, as if the scenic valley is a hell on earth.

To point fingers towards the people of a particular area of the country and to blame them for extremism and violence is blatant ethnic discrimination.

Any citizen of Pakistan, belonging to any area, has a legal right to live in any other part of the country. People of Parachinar are citizens of Pakistan. Calling them “outsiders” who have “migrated” to Rawalpindi gives an impression that they are refugees who have fled their home country. The people of Parachinar, like their compatriots, work in all the major cities of Pakistan as doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers and government officials. Many of them hold important positions in civil services. Some of them have represented Pakistan abroad as diplomats. Parachinar has sent many young men to the Armed Forces and has the honour of receiving the coffins of some of them wrapped in the national flag. Many brilliant students from Parachinar study in renowned colleges and universities throughout Pakistan. It is unfair to give a bad name to these patriotic, progressive and peace-loving people.

It is true that Parachinar, the capital town of Kurram Agency, has witnessed unfortunate episodes of sectarian violence in the past, but there is a history to it.

Kurram Agency is one of the seven Agencies of FATA and is wedged between four provinces of Afghanistan – Nangarhar, Paktia, Logar and Khost. Jalalabad and Kabul are a stone’s throw away from the town. It hosts a major transit route to Afghanistan and shares with the latter the infamous ‘Tora Bora’ mountains. Due to its location, the agency has immense strategic importance. Like other parts of Pakistan, sectarianism was introduced to Parachinar during the days of Afghan Jihad, when the policymakers of the country decided to fight a super power through the religious ideology of Jihad. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the holy warriors fighting against the Soviets had the blessing of Washington and Islamabad. These religious zealots wielded immense influence in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan. Their fight against the Soviets may have been in the national interest, but regrettably, they did disturb the sectarian harmony among the peaceful residents of Kurram.

After 9/11, Jihadi militants had repeatedly asked the elders of Parachinar to give them safe passage into Afghanistan. The peace-loving people of Parachinar denied safe havens and safe passages to terrorists, because they do not buy the idea that these militants can be our “strategic assets”. Moreover, the people of Parachinar also feared their occupation by the militants, who enjoy influence in other tribal areas. They had to pay a heavy price in the form of sectarian unrest, which was instigated by the Jihadists angry with them. Apart from that, terrorists from banned sectarian outfits, in connivance with TTP and similar militant groups, declared a war against the so-called infidels in the agency and descended upon them in 2006. The locals defended their land bravely in the war, without any help from the security apparatus of the country that was supposed to protect them. They successfully restored peace in the agency by defeating all the militant groups – a feat that even the United States has not been able to achieve so far.

To avenge this humiliation, the terrorists cut off Parachinar from the rest of Pakistan for more than five years by blocking the Tal-Parachinar Highway. They also kidnapped and slaughtered a number of people from the agency who used this highway for travelling. Subsequently, Parachinar faced a great humanitarian crisis for over five years, which was hardly ever reported the media. Ironically, the locals had to travel to the settled areas of Pakistan through Afghanistan. Despite all the odds, they remained patriotic citizens of Pakistan and endured this calamity for the sake of peace, freedom and honour.

Recently, in the aftermath of reconciliation between the residents of Kurram belonging to various sectarian outfits, the terrorists have been pressured to open the Tal-Parachinar Highway. But they continue to hunt down the people of Parachinar, especially the elders, politicians and government officers in cities like Peshawar and Islamabad. They have attacked and even managed to kill a number of prominent personalities hailing from the agency.

In this backdrop, it is highly irresponsible on the part of media to come up with reports that call the people of Parachinar violent hardliners. Such reporting may compound the problems that the area is already facing. The people of Parachinar who live in other cities of Pakistan, especially the students studying at various colleges and universities in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, may also face ethnic and sectarian discrimination, security threats and other problems.

The writer is a social science researcher and freelance columnist