Christmas is under a cloud in Pakistan for the seemingly hopeless minorities. This must be the saddest thought in the subcontinent a week before the season of joy and merriment. The suicide bomb attack on a church in Quetta, in restive Baluchistan province, has killed no fewer than 13 worshippers ~ as on Monday morning ~ and injured at least 35. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the carnage… just when it had appeared to be down and out in Syria and Iraq. The strained denial by Pakistani officials that the Caliphate lacks an organised presence in the country will cut no ice; suffice it to register that the butchery of Sunday worshippers ~ exactly a week before Christmas eve ~ underscores the dismal lack of security for religious minorities, most particularly Christians. On the contrary, any attempt to assist this segment has been greeted with charges of blasphemy, when not persecution and death… as was the nemesis of a former Governor of Punjab province.

Clearly, the security network, such as it was, around Quetta’s Bethel Memorial Methodist Church had virtually collapsed when it was stormed by the suicide bombers; the casualties would have been higher had they been able to enter the main hall. The law enforcement agencies have miserably failed to protect common citizens, and minorities in particular. Considering that ISIS has claimed responsibility for several previous attacks in Baluchistan, much tighter security was imperative at the start of the holy fortnight. The world over, December is a month of religious rituals, and the community’s demands for beefed-up security in all churches have palpably been ignored. The gruesome tragedy has trashed the government’s claim that violence in Baluchistan, bordering Afghanistan and Iran, has been contained. Such claims were belied on Sunday morning when the bombers had an easy access to the church to carry out their assault. At risk were 400 worshippers who had gathered for Sunday service when a bomber detonated explosives, sending worshipers fleeing.

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Trashed as well is the army’s boast that it has broken the “backbone of terrorism” in the country. Far from it. It is now pretty obvious that the terrorists have struck the weak and the vulnerable, indeed a segment that cannot expect the government’s protection to the extent desired. The ISIS attack has reinforced the standing threat of the Taliban, which maintains a forbidding presence on the Af-Pak frontier. The government in Islamabad has failed a community that constitutes two per cent of the population of 198 million. Indeed, the outrage has raised questions about Pakistan’s ability to protect religious minorities who are as insecure across the Radcliffe line as as they are in Bangladesh. Visuals of a Christmas tree with decorative lights and blood outside the door are a mute witness to the enormity of the tragedy.