The blast at the Darul Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, was tragic enough, for it not only claimed the life of the head of the madressa, but also of five others. It was also significant for it targeted one of the most prominent of the country’s madressas. Among the many lumni of the Darul Uloom were many leading figures in the Taliban, including Taliban founder Mullah Umar. He was actually given an honorary sanad by the Jamia, something unprecedented, for he had not completed the course there. Maulana Hamidul Haq may have been followed by violent death, for his father, Maulana Samiul Haq, was murdered in 2018 in Rawalpindi. The madressa was founded by his grandfather, Maulana Abdul Haq, who had a reputation for great piety and scholarship.
One of the ironies that seems to have afflicted the religious leaders of the Deobandi school is that the sectarian terrorists have now begun attacking them. The modus operandi ws relatively straightforward, of a suicide bombing in a mosque on the occasion of Friday prayers (in this case afterwards), but its target ws surprising. It might be noted that there have been two attempts on the life of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the most prominent political leader of the Deobandi school. The late Maulana Hamidul Haq was leader of the JUI faction headed by his father Maulna Sami, who in turn had succeeded Maulana Abdullah Darkhwasti. The JUI had split on the death of Mufti Mhmood,in 1980, one group electing Maulana Darkhwasti as Amir, the other his son Fazlur Rehman. There now seems a reckoning between the more militant and the less militant, but it is still ironic that the target of violence has now shifted to those with whom the perpetrators have fine doctrinal differences.
There should now be a careful examination of what went wrong. The police and other intelligence agencies seem to have fallen down so badly that they have not ruled out nonsectarian perpetrators. The question of checking is not at all simple, but high-value targets, such as Friday congregations cannot be left unprotected. The questions that arise over the provincial government are inevitable, and add to those raised by the ongoing clashes in Kurram. The possibility of a Taliban connection cannot be ruled out, especially in the light of the recent clashed between the Taliban government of Afghanistan and Islamabad.
