QUETTA, Pakistan: Mourners gathered Saturday to bury their dead in southwest Pakistan after a blast killed 128 people at a political rally in one of the country’s deadliest attacks, underscoring ongoing security challenges following years of dramatic improvements.
The Islamic State-claimed suicide attack in the town of Mastung, near the Balochistan provincial capital Quetta, was the latest in a series of bombings targeting campaign events in the last week, sparking fears of more violence ahead of nationwide polls on July 25.
Hospitals in the area have been placed under “emergency” management after being overwhelmed yesterday, with around 150 also injured in the blast — many of them still in critical condition after suffering head trauma.
“We have imposed emergency in the hospitals and canceled the vacations of the doctors and paramedics,” Balochistan home minister Agha Umar Bungalzai told AFP.
The provincial home secretary Haider Shako added that extra security forces had been deployed in “sensitive areas” and warned politicians to remain “vigilant.”
Among the dead was Siraj Raisani, who was running for a provincial seat with the newly-formed local Balochistan Awami Party (BAP).
The BAP suspended campaign-related events on Saturday and has called for its supporters to observe three days of mourning.
The attack was the deadliest since Taliban militants assaulted a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in 2014, killing over 150 people, mostly children, and one of the deadliest in Pakistan’s long struggle with militancy.
The explosion in Mastung came hours after four people were killed and 39 injured when a bomb hidden inside a motorcycle detonated close to another politician’s convoy in Bannu, near the border with Afghanistan.
The politician — Akram Khan Durrani, a candidate of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) party — survived.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for that attack.
And on Tuesday, a bomb claimed by the Pakistani Taliban targeted a rally by the Awami National Party (ANP) in the city of Peshawar. Local ANP leader Haroon Bilour was among the 22 killed.
Following the attacks, analysts called for the country’s armed forces to focus on security challenges rather than politics, in the wake of myriad allegations that the military was meddling in the country’s upcoming polls.
“It has never been more true that Pakistan’s security establishment needs to focus on security, not politics,” tweeted analyst Mosharraf Zaidi.
In an editorial in the English daily Dawn, the newspaper called for authorities to “not only beef up security but also mobilize the entire intelligence apparatus to do the job they are actually meant to, ie preventing attacks.”
The bombings come at a moment of increasing political turmoil in Pakistan as former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was arrested after arriving in the eastern city of Lahore late Friday, as he aims to energize his embattled party’s base — injecting fresh uncertainty into the country days ahead of the polls.
Pakistanis mourn after election rally bombing
Pakistanis mourn after election rally bombing
Afghan barbers under pressure as morality police take on short beards
KABUL: Barbers in Afghanistan risk detention for trimming men’s beards too short, they told AFP, as the Taliban authorities enforce their strict interpretation of Islamic law with increasing zeal.
Last month, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said it was now “obligatory” to grow beards longer than a fist, doubling down on an earlier order.
Minister Khalid Hanafi said it was the government’s “responsibility to guide the nation to have an appearance according to sharia,” or Islamic law.
Officials tasked with promoting virtue “are obliged to implement the Islamic system,” he said.
With ministry officials patrolling city streets to ensure the rule is followed, the men interviewed by AFP all spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
In the southeastern province of Ghazni, a 30-year-old barber said he was detained for three nights after officials found out that one of his employees had given a client a Western-style haircut.
“First, I was held in a cold hall. Later, after I insisted on being released, they transferred me to a cold (shipping) container,” he said.
He was eventually released without charge and continues to work, but usually hides with his clients when the patrols pass by.
“The thing is that no one can argue or question” the ministry officials, the barber said.
“Everyone fears them.”
He added that in some cases where both a barber and clients were detained, “the clients have been let out, but they kept the barber” in custody.
Last year, three barbers in Kunar province were jailed for three to five months for breaching the ministry’s rules, according to a UN report.
‘Personal space’
Alongside the uptick in enforcement, the religious affairs ministry has also issued stricter orders.
In an eight-page guide to imams issued in November, prayer leaders were told to describe shaving beards as a “major sin” in their sermons.
The religious affairs ministry’s arguments against trimming state that by shaving their beards, men were “trying to look like women.”
The orders have also reached universities — where only men study because women have been banned.
A 22-year-old Kabul University student said lecturers “have warned us... that if we don’t have a proper Islamic appearance, which includes beards and head covering, they will deduct our marks.”
In the capital Kabul, a 25-year-old barber lamented that “there are a lot of restrictions” which go against his young clients’ preference for closer shaves.
“Barbers are private businesses, beards and heads are something personal, they should be able to cut the way they want,” he said.
Hanafi, the virtue propagation minister, has dismissed such arguments, saying last month that telling men “to grow a beard according to sharia” cannot be considered “invading the personal space.”
Business slump
In Afghanistan, the majority are practicing Muslims, but before the Taliban authorities returned to power in 2021, residents of major cities could choose their own appearance.
In areas where Taliban fighters were battling US-backed forces, men would grow beards either out of fear or by choice.
As fewer and fewer men opt for a close shave, the 25-year-old Kabul barber said he was already losing business.
Many civil servants, for example, “used to sort their hair a couple of times a week, but now, most of them have grown beards, they don’t show up even in a month,” he said.
A 50-year-old barber in Kabul said morality patrols “visit and check every day.”
In one incident this month, the barber said that an officer came into the shop and asked: “Why did you cut the hair like this?“
“After trying to explain that he is a child, he told us: ‘No, do Islamic hair, not English hair’.”
