Sindh militants blow up railway tracks

By Zia Ur Rehman
For CentralAsiaOnline.com
2011-02-17

KARACHI – Two blasts that damaged the main railway track in the Shah Latif Town area of Karachi, and interrupted rail traffic for an hour February 17, are the latest in a recent wave of such attacks.

Two unknown men travelling by motorbike planted .5kg of explosives in Shah Latif and set them off manually, police said.

In the past week bombs throughout Sindh Province have targeted railway tracks, disrupting upcountry train service. The blasts are the work of the Sindhu Desh Liberation Army (SDLA), an underground terrorist organisation linked with the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a security official said.

The SDLA collaborates with the TTP and BLA and exchanges weapons and terrorists with them, the official said. Central Asia Online has previously reported on the links between the BLA and TTP.

More than a dozen low-intensity blasts halted train service for hours, an official of Pakistan Railways (PR) told Central Asia Online.More than a dozen low-intensity blasts halted train service for hours, an official of Pakistan Railways (PR) told Central Asia Online. On February 11 two blasts damaged the track in Karachi near the Baloch Colony area; four blasts occurred in Mehrab Pur; two were set off in Hyderabad; and four occurred in Nawab Shah. In Khairpur on blast was set off February 13; and followed one in Kotri a day earlier, the PR official said.

The explosion near the Baloch Colony bridge area in Karachi injured two people, but no injuries have been reported in the other explosions, the official added.

Rail attacks lead to financial losses

The February 11 attacks compelled PR to halt trains carrying cargo up-country, causing a loss of Rs. 5m (US $58,700), the official said. All of the damaged track have been repaired and service restored, the official said.

Sindh Home Minister Zulfiqar Mirza has ordered the inspector general of police Sindh to investigate and to arrest the culprits, a government statement said.

Mirza ordered the formation of a special team to investigate and demanded a full report, according to the statement.

Officials already have created a security plan to protect the tracks with the assistance of the Sindh police and round-the-clock patrols have begun, said Superintendent of Railway Police Muzaffar Sheikh.

Law enforcement agencies have arrested dozens of suspects from Karachi, Hyderabad and Nawab Shah, Sheikh said.

The railway attacks are linked to the militancy in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and are meant to disrupt communications and foster panic, said Sharfuddin Memon, a consultant at the Sindh Home Ministry.

The locally made bombs used against the railway each contained about 1.1kg of explosive, bomb disposal officials said. They described the blasts as similar in nature and seemingly co-ordinated.

PR police found SDLA leaflets at the explosion sites, and Darya Khan, an SDLA commander, has claimed responsibility for the railway bombings throughout Sindh, a senior police official in Hyderabad told Central Asia Online. Khan also took responsibility for four explosions damaging the Guddo railway tracks in November.

The SDLA is an underground Sindhi terrorist organisation comprised of different splinter factions that broke away from various Sindhi nationalist groups. Its main commanders are Khan and Ghulam Hussain Chandio, said Ibrahim Shah, a Sukker-based Sindhi journalist.

The SDLA has bombed railway tracks in the past. It has always left pamphlets at the scene denouncing alleged atrocities against the Sindhi people and vowing to continue its struggle until Sindh gains “freedom,” Shah added.

End

Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai’s urs begins

By Zia Ur Rehman
For CentralAsiaOnline.com
2011-01-20

KARACHI — Thousands of devotees gathered at the Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai shrine to participate in the three-day urs (anniversary) January 19.

Urs attracts tens of thousands of devotees every year from as far away as Europe to pay homage to the Sufi saint. Bhitai’s themes included love, religious tolerance and humanistic values.

“]

Sindh folk singers sing the poetry of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, Sindh's famous Sufi poet and saint, in an event organised at Karachi Press Club in January. Bhitai annual urs started in Bhit Shah town of Mithiari District, Sindh. [Zia Ur Rehman

The Auqaf Department (AD) has set up a unique cultural village for artists and writers to display their work, said Shams Jafrani, an AD officer. Awards and shields will be given to the writers in recognition of their writing, creativity and texture of thoughts, he said.

Jafrani said they have also set up a literary conference for Sufi scholars from Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Punjab.

Sufi University Sindh to open soon

The 267th urs of Sindh’s famed Sufi saint and poet has started in Bhit Shah – the town where the Sindh government will establish Sufi University Sindh.

The university is scheduled to open in a few months at an initial cost of Rs. 65m (US $ 758,000). The curriculum will include music, literature, linguistics and religion but the study of Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, will be the primary academic pursuit, said Dr. M. Abid Shah, head of Department of Sindhi at University of Karachi, who has also done his Ph.D. in sufism.

According to the university proposal, there will be three major wings of the University – Sufi thought and practice, mystic poetry and literature, and South Asian Arts (fine arts, folk music, performing arts and architecture). There will be a regional admission quota for all provinces to ensure geographically diverse admission.

Urs comes with increased security

Abdul Shakoor Bozdar, an AD official responsibile for urs security, told Central Asia Online that arrangements for the three-day festival include at least 2,400 policemen and Rangers.

Pakistani Sufi shrines have been frequent targets of militant groups whose hard-line interpretation of Islam clash with sufi spiritual practices. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for most of these attacks.

In the past three years, KP and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas have witnessed attacks on different Sufi shrines by militants. A number of faith healers and caretakers have also been targeted.

“Sufism has been targeted by Tailbanisation, a new faith embedded by anti-mystic jihadi forces which has nothing to do with Islam,” said Muhammad Fayyaz Khan, Secretary General of Jamiat Ulema Pakistan, a pro-Sufism religious party, in KP.

Can Sufism solve militancy?

Adherents of Sufism said Sufism is the solution to today’s militancy.

“The menace of terrorism and militancy could be eliminated from the country by promoting the teachings of Sufi saints,” said Dilshad Bhutto, a renowned Sindhi intellectual and head of Pakistan Secular Forum.

Sufi religious leaders and poets like Bhittai, Rehman Baba and Bhulay Shah enjoy respect and influence over the local population, Bhutto told Central Asia Online.

“Islam spread in the Sindh region through preaching of Sufis, not by Arab fighters like Muhammad Bin Qasim,” Bhutto said. “Sufis came and spread the religious message of love, peace and harmony.”

He suggested that the KP government should also try to establish a Sufi university in that province as Sufism had made a deep impact on Pashtun society and Sufi shrines dot the landscape.

“Taliban militants now consider Sufism as a big threat to their radical brand of Islam”, Khan said, adding that Sufism adherents have always condemned the Taliban’s un-Islamic acts, like beheading the innocent and bombing mosques and shrines.

“In the last few years, first we are seeing them blatantly attacking the Sufi symbols like shrines by Taliban only in KP and FATA, but now they are targeting the shrines in Sindh and Punjab too,” Khan added.

The federal government formed a Sufi Advisory Council (SAC) in June 2009 to slow the spread of militancy and fanaticism in the country. A few days later, a suicide attack at a Lahore mosque killed noted religious scholar Allama Sarfaraz Naeemi, who was known for labelling the activities of the Taliban “un-Islamic.”

Naeemi was also struggling for establishing a Sufi studies institute in the country, said Maulana Ahmed Qadri, a religious leader in Karachi. He said the Sindh government is fulfilling the wish of Naeemi by establishing Sufi University in order to spread the messages of love and peace.