Protecting the shrines of saintly figures

By Afzal Hussain Bokhari

After a blast at the shrine of mystic Pushto poet Rahman Baba in Hazarkhwani and similar outrageous acts in Swat, Dir, Landi Kotal and more recently in village Chamkani outside Peshawar, anti-social elements offended the religious sensibilities of the common people by striking on Thursday night at the mausoleum of Syed Ali Hajveri popularly known as Data Ganj Bakhsh. Two suicide bombers stormed the sprawling shrine complex and blew themselves up thus killing 43 and injuring more than 100 of the visitors.

Like it happened in other parts of the country, people in the metropolis of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa felt shocked and grieved at the loss of lives.

The callous attackers in Lahore were least bothered about the fact that closed circuit television (cctv) cameras so clearly captured their images as the shrine attendants in green caps gave them a hot chase after they rushed through the wailing walk-through gates.

At the time of the blasts, a large number of the saint’s devotees were performing ablution or having food in the basement. The day of the week being Thursday, the crowd that converged on the shrine was bigger than usual.

As the satellite television channels beamed the images of blood-stained victims into homes, the government beefed up the security arrangements at other places such as the shrine of warrior-poet Khushal Khan Khattak near Akora, that of Baba Bulleh Shah in Kasur, Hazrat Sultan Bahu in Jhang, Baba Farid Ganj Shakar in Pak Pattan, Khwaja Bahauddin Zikria in Multan, Shah Abdul Latif in Bhit Shah, Hyderabad in Sindh and of Bibi Pak Daman, Hazrat Madhu Lal Hussain and Mian Mir in Lahore.

Ridiculing the performance of the provincial government with regard to acts of subversion in Manawan Police Training School, FIA Building on Temple Road, Model Town, Gari Shahu and attack on Sri Lanka’s cricket team in Gulberg, Federal Minister of Law, Dr Babar Awan, said that militants had given Lahore one bloodbath after the other but the rulers who loved to be described as the Khadim-i-Punjab and the Sher-i-Punjab were nowhere to be seen.

When Syed Ali Hajveri arrived in Lahore, he built a mosque and his living room where he stayed up to last moment. It was in the same room that he breathed his last.

His Khalifah Hazrat Sheikh Hindi led his funeral prayers and buried him in his blessed room, where his tomb stands to this date after nearly 965 years and is still a frequent haunt for Sufis and other Muslims who arrive for spiritual favours and benefits.

It is stated that Data Ganj Bakhsh passed away on 9th of Muharram-ul-Haram in 465 hijri. Every year on this day the ‘Ghusal Mubarak’ takes place and thousands of people from all over the world come to attend the ritual. After nearly 20 days, on 19th of the lunar month Safar his ‘Urs’ (devotional gathering) takes place. On 18th of Safar every year after the Maghreb prayers a chador is placed on his blessed tomb.

Prominently inscribed on his shrine are the poetic lines in Persian composed as eternal homage to Data Sahib by a visiting saint from Ajmer Sharif, Hazrat Khwaja Moeen-ud-Din Chishti: “Ganj Bakhsh-i-Faiz-i-Alam, Mazhar-i-Noor-i-Khuda; Naqisaan ra Pir-i-Kamil, kamilaan ra rahnuma!”

Attack on Data Sahib’s tomb came in the middle of a brewing controversy as to the origin of terrorism in the country. Some of the people believe on the basis of intelligence reports that the masterminds of extremism are based in southern districts of Punjab such as Cholistan, Rahim Yar Khan and Bahawalpur where suicide strikers including individuals from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are allegedly trained.

Similarly, there are some other people who like to believe that the actual training camps are in South Waziristan where a military cleanup operation, aided by air force jets and drone attacks, is currently in its final stage.

People from this school of thought believe that Punjabi Taliban got their training in the tribal belt. Despite this confusion, people from both schools of thought are of the opinion that law enforcing agencies should undertake a cleanup operation against militants regardless of their ethnic background and the place of training.

During the recent by-elections in various Punjab constituencies, the political opponents accused the provincial minister of law, Rana Sanaullah, of rubbing shoulders with the militants.

In a television talk show, the minister admitted to the fact that cameras caught him sitting with Hafiz Mohammad Ahmad Ludhianvi.

In a public address some time back Chief Minister Punjab, Mian Shahbaz Sharif, made an open appeal to the Taliban militants not to carry out their activities in Punjab.

The appeal was made in a very subtle manner but it spilled the beans in a very crude way. Recently, in his current affairs programme on the privately-run Dunyanews television channel, the well-informed senior journalist Najam Sethi disclosed that Punjab police raided a shop in Raiwind outside Lahore and recovered a consignment of lethal weapons but under political pressure from above, police not only concealed from media the report of the sensational recovery but later went to the extent of absolute withdrawal from the case.

In a recent statement, Senator Afrasiab Khan Khattak, said that if ANP had not taken a firm stand against the Taliban militants, they would very likely have descended on the federal capital of Islamabad. Commenting on the Data Darbar attack in Lahore, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that defunct organisations like Sipah-i-Sahaba, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Tehrik-i-Taliban were operating jointly.

Political leaders including Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani are of the opinion that an all-parties conference should immediately be called to discuss the issue of terrorism and internal subversion.

At the same time the new commander of Nato forces General Patreus has arrived in Afghanistan and he is still in favour of holding talks with the moderate Taliban. In this context, Pakistan has to take care of its national interests.