The day after the deadly Quetta Police Academy attack, workers of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf seem not too perturbed by the tragedy, and are set on their date with the capital on November 2. But what was initially perceived as stubbornness, quickly started looking like indifference and callousness in light of the inappropriate statements coming in from the members of PTI.
Let’s start with Shah Mehmood Qureshi, one of those handpicked by Imran Khan to find new allies to bolster their ranks in Islamabad. He claimed that the Difa-e-Pakistan Council and the Shuhada Foundation (Lal Masjid) had not been invited to the march, but they will not be turned down if they choose to stick around beyond their October 28 demonstration. It is convergence, not collusion; which is hard to believe considering the arrangements that the PTI has to make if its numbers swell.
Lal Masjid may not have anything to do with the attack in Quetta, but the ideological similarities between them and the terrorists cannot be missed. The party leaders know exactly who they are converging with, and the 60 lives lost in Quetta on Monday seem to have no effect on their decision.
You also have the PTI chief himself, leading the charge with his keyboard warriors dutifully following and expressing their views about the whole affair, calling Nawaz Sharif the biggest security risk to the country and questioning the timing of the Quetta attack so close to the march, going as far as accusing the Prime Minister of colluding with India. Just like the last Quetta attack. To even insinuate that the ruling party, the Prime Minister or any Pakistani citizen for that matter would cause the death of the people all over a pointless march is preposterous and tells us that PTI has an inflated sense of its own importance. This bull-headedness used to be comical once but is now only worthy of contempt, as PTI leaders continue to come off as more and more capricious by the day.
With this rhetoric, Imran Khan is the only one who comes out looking like he does not care for the lives lost. This is not to say that the government is any better; the people are stuck between an infrastructural-building machine in the government, and a power-hungry party with blinders on in PTI, heedless of the damage it could cause by shutting down the capital with its new friends. Not a comforting thought in reach, anywhere one turns.