GIVEN the hair-trigger mood prevailing in Pakistan, the explosion on Thursday in Lahore’s DHA area was bound to create panic. The number of casualties, with several dead and more than 20 injured as well as considerable damage to the surroundings and the vehicles parked nearby, appeared to suggest it was the latest manifestation in the recent, extended run of terrorist attacks countrywide. Parents rushed to collect their children from schools in the vicinity and shopkeepers pulled down their shutters. Soon, conflicting reports began to emerge in quick succession. First, provincial government authorities said it was a “generator explosion”, but then a Punjab police spokesman described it as a bomb blast, a claim corroborated by the Counter Terrorism Department. For his part, Law Minister Rana Sanaullah cast doubt on that possibility by saying the building was an unlikely target as it was not yet open for business. To add to the mayhem, reports of another explosion in the city’s Gulberg locality began to proliferate for a while on television news channels until they were discredited. Later in the evening, the CTD stated that the DHA blast was a “gas cylinder explosion”, a view that the provincial law minister reiterated in his press conference yesterday.

The fervid speculation and flurry of rumours that continued to do the rounds on social media and mainstream media until late at night on Thursday were entirely unnecessary — a consequence of shoddy management by those who should have done a far better job of handling the situation. After all, the public is rightly nervous, their trepidation justified by recent events, and even a car backfiring is cause for alarm. In such an atmosphere, it is doubly important for cooler heads to prevail, determine what can reliably be ascertained in the aftermath of an apparent attack and keep the public informed accordingly. Certainly, the electronic media has a tendency to sensationalise events, and it did not disappoint on this occasion either, but contradictory information from different official sources inevitably multiplies the sense of chaos and confusion. The trick for the authorities is to find a balance: they must communicate enough to convey a sense of having things under control but not so little that they give the impression they are downplaying the gravity of the situation, for that would merely engender more speculation. And as we all know, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2017