THE murder of PTI lawmaker Sardar Soran Singh in Buner on Friday highlights, once again, the dangers faced by members of minority communities in Pakistan, even those supposedly in positions of power. It also illustrates the precarious law and order situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where a lawmaker belonging to the ruling party can be gunned down with such relative ease. Singh is the fourth PTI legislator in the current KP Assembly to have been killed. It is, of course, true that many groups and communities located near the centres of militancy are at risk in KP and Fata. Those familiar with the area where the MPA was killed say militant groups remain active there; a number of targeted killings have occurred in the recent past, including of workers belonging to the ANP. As for the Sikh community, others belonging to this religious group have been gunned down in Fata as well as in Peshawar. Singh’s commitment to his country was quite evident as he refused to join members of his immediate family in India, preferring to stay in Pakistan.

Soran Singh’s murder is reminiscent of the killing of federal minister Shahbaz Bhatti in 2011. While minorities face varying levels of discrimination in Pakistan, when a high-profile member of a non-Muslim religious group is murdered in cold blood, the psychological impact on minorities is devastating. And although, some say that Singh was not too bothered when it came to matters of personal safety, the KP government should have provided him with extra security detail considering the threats that existed in the area. Regrettably, it appears that the reaction of KP’s ruling party to the killing has been muted, perhaps because everyone’s attention is drawn to the commotion over corruption. We hope this case is not forgotten soon and that the perpetrators are caught and punished. In the long term, the lawmaker’s murder shows that countrywide, the battle against militancy and violence is far from over.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2016