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Bombing of Rehman Baba’s shrine : Experts says militants distancing themselves from culture, history

By Manzoor Ali Shah

PESHAWAR: Rehman Baba shrine bombing is an attempt by the militants to create a new identity while distancing themselves from their own culture and history, experts told Daily Times on Sunday.

Khadim Hussain, an analyst and coordinator with Arynana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy (AIRRA), told Daily Times that the militants had modelled themselves on Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) who had smashed idols after conquering Makkah.

He said Rehman Baba represented the aesthetic values of Pakhtun nation and attack on his shrine was meant to destroy the sense of pluralism, secular values and aesthetic beauty of the Pakhtuns.

“Rehman Baba symbolises Pakhtun unity and whether Pakhtuns agree or disagree on any other matter, all of them agree on Rehman Baba,” he said.

He said the media made light of the incident, as one could imagine that what would happen if such thing was done to the shrine of Hafiz Shirazi in Shiraz, Ghalib’s in Delhi or Data Ganj Bukhsh’s in Lahore.

He proposed a discourse on the ideological contradictions of militant ideology to counter it by the civil society, media, political parties and intelligentsia.

“Jihadist mentality is shared by networked organizations and also shares a Pan-Islamist ideology and it could be countered by use of force against these networks and adopting a coordinated development mechanism for the foot soldiers of these networks,” he said. He proposed that Pakistan, Afghanistan and India should join forces against this network.

Former chief secretary of NWFP and analyst Khalid Aziz said that the shrine attack was connected with a certain type of Islamic ideology and it reflected the militants’ attempts to create a new identity for them.

“In this new thinking, which traces its roots to Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Rehman Baba and Khushal Khan Khattak have no place and the militants want to link themselves with Islamic history, and tradition and local culture has no importance for them.

Yousaf Ali Dilsoz, Chairman Rehman Abdi Jirga, said that knowledge, poetry and love for humanity needed no explanation and as far as the attack was concerned, the poet himself said, “Spring and winter did not affect me. I am like a grown-up tree.”

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