have we learnt any lessons?

October 16, 1951, stands out within the historical past of Pakistan as a date when the primary prime minister of the nation, Liaquat Ali Khan, was shot useless throughout a public rally in Rawalpindi’s Firm Gardens, damaging the foundations of a fragile democratic construction of the newly-born nation.

The bullets fired in 1951 on the Firm Bagh, later renamed Liaquat Bagh, led to the primary main assassination however, sadly, it was not the final try as PTI chairman and former premier Imran Khan has grow to be the newest to hitch the lengthy listing of politicians, who’ve confronted such assaults.

The shootings and terrorist assaults which have continued with frequent intervals for greater than seven a long time took the lives of a number of politicians, together with former premier Benazir Bhutto, her brother Mir Murtaza Bhutto, Gujrat’s Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi, Punjab’s former dwelling minister Shuja Khanzada and ex-minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti.

A number of others, together with Khyber-Pakhthunkhwa Meeting member and ANP’s Bashir Ahmed Bilour and his son Haroon Bilour; non secular scholar and ex-senator Maulana Samiul Haq; MQM’s Syed Ali Raza Abidi; and PTI’s Sardar Soran Singh had been additionally killed in such assaults.

Identical to Imran, PML-N’s incumbent Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal has additionally survived an assassination try.

Benazir was murdered on December 27, 2007 by a suicide bomber.

She had simply completed an election rally in Rawalpindi.

Her brother was shot useless together with six associates in a police encounter close to his dwelling in Karachi on September 20, 1996, throughout her tenure.

Zahoor Elahi was assassinated in Lahore in 1981 by Al-Zulfikar, reportedly, by a terrorist organisation led by Murtaza Bhutto. It claimed duty for the assault.

Khanzada was assassinated in a suicide assault at his political workplace in Shadikhan, Attock on August 16, 2015. A militant group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, had claimed duty for his homicide.

On March 2, 2011, gunmen had killed Bhatti, who spoke about blasphemy legislation and championed the rights of the nation’s beleaguered minorities.

A suicide blast within the Qissa Khawani Bazaar space of Peshawar had killed Ok-P senior minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour together with eight others in December 2012. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan had claimed duty for that blast. His son was killed in a suicide bombing throughout a celebration assembly in Peshawar on July 10, 2018.

Maulana Samiul Haq, who was referred to as the “Father of Taliban” for the position his seminary Darul Uloom Haqqania performed, was killed at his residence in Rawalpindi in November 2018.

MNA Abidi was shot useless on December 25, 2018, exterior his residence in Karachi.

Singh was gunned down in a focused assault close to his home on April 22, 2016. The assaults have continued within the nation and scarred the consciousness of nation.

The spectre of political assassinations continues to hang-out Pakistan. The flames haven’t but been extinguished and the injuries are nonetheless gaping.

“We haven’t learnt any lesson from the previous. The truth is, the frequency of violent assaults has elevated,” Pakistan Institute of Legislative Growth and Transparency (PILDAT) President Ahmed Bilal Mehboob stated.

He added that there had hardly been any plan chalked out to hold out politics in an organised and civilised method.

The PILDAT president recalled that the one severe effort to take care of violent and extremist incidents in addition to the mindset that led to them was the Nationwide Motion Plan (NAP), however everybody forgot about it in a yr or so after its delivery.

“Democracy weakens the place violence and extremism prevails,” Mehboob stated. He regretted that democracy didn’t work in societies, the place political opponents had been labelled as traitors.

“Political rivals oppose one another throughout the globe however they chorus from labelling one another as traitors to achieve political capital,” he lamented. “Traitor means eliminating the opponent and that’s what we’ve been witnessing for thus lengthy,” he added.

Commenting on the assault on the PTI chairman, he stated that the response over the incident instructed that the tragedy can be used for political positive aspects because the statements from the get together management didn’t carry a reconciliatory tone, which may assist in placing out the hearth of intolerance and polarisation.

Analysts, whereas regretting that polarisation was at its peak, stated the political management in addition to the nation must come collectively to take significant motion to stop such assaults.

They added that makes an attempt had been additionally required to chill down the political temperature.

Whatever the political affiliation and variations, they emphasised there was a dire want to sit down collectively as violent assaults resulting in assassinations had been sending a surprising message to the world.

Madiha Afzal, the writer of “Pakistan underneath Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State”, tweeted: “Political setting in Pakistan was already extremely tense. The assault on [Imran] Khan immediately upends it altogether—and is prone to additional political instability.”

Afzal, who’s a fellow on the Brookings Establishment, added: “I’ll take a Pakistan the place historical past doesn’t repeat itself with such grotesque regularity.”