Black, bloody day Thursday, January 10, 2013, at barely the start of the new year, turned out to be one of the blackest, bloodiest days in the country’s history. In Quetta, three explosions, two sectarian in nature and targeting the victimized Hazara Shia community, and the third part of the nationalist insurgency targeting the Frontier Corps (FC), killed 92 people and injured 147. In Swat, a Tableeghi Jamaat centre saw an explosion that killed 22 and injured 84 people. In Karachi, that hotbed of bloodshed, 12 people were killed and four wounded by gunmen. Any one of these tragedies would have been enough to raise alarm. Taken as a whole on the day, the carnage reflected the parlous state of the country from north to south. Details indicate the morning blast in Quetta near an FC vehicle has been claimed by the United Baloch Army, said to be one of the Baloch nationalist insurgent groups. Their claim of responsibility spoke of the attack being in retaliation for the military operations in Mushkay and other areas of the troubled province. In the case of the two later blasts in Quetta, the billiard hall targeted was located in a Hazara area, and the sectarian nature of the attack was confirmed by a claim of responsibility by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a rabidly anti-Shia group. In other ways too, the anti-Shia attack bore the hallmarks of the terrorists’ tactics when the initial blast attracted police, rescuers, media and the public to the site, where their concentrated numbers suffered most of the casualties when a second blast went off 10 minutes after the first one. The casualties include police, rescue, media personnel and the public. Some of the wounded are in serious condition, which could mean the death toll will rise. In the case of the Swat attack, police sources confirmed the suspicion it was a bomb, given that shrapnel and ball bearings hit the victims. The Tableeghi Jamaat is not known to be involved in any militant activity, although many extremist groups use the cover of its gatherings to promote their own agendas. It is therefore a mystery who would want to target the proselytizing group. Karachi of course continues to bleed, having been reduced at the hands of militias attached to various political parties, jihadi extremists and plain criminal elements. Each new incident carries the trademarks of by now well known perpetrators for well known objectives (with the possible exception of the Tableeghi Jamaat attack). Yet the very repetition of these kinds of incidents points to the disconcerting truth that the governments and law enforcement and security authorities seem to be clueless, reactive, and floundering in the face of determined enemies of the state and society. In the case of terrorism, both sectarian and anti-state (both kinds often overlapping), what seems conspicuous by its absence is a coordinated, effective strategy and the tools, organisational and other, to implement it. The response of the authorities therefore remains reactive, handing the initiative to asymmetrical warriors with an anti-human, fanatical agenda. In the case of the Baloch nationalist insurgency, a problem essentially political in nature, the resort to military means without a political strategy of talking to the insurgents has trapped the province in an endless spiral of increasing violence with no end in sight. Karachi is Hobbes’ Leviathan in miniature, with an all out war of all against all. There too, political expediency, vested interest and absence of political will ensure the killing fields continue to thrive. It could well be that Maulana Tahirul Qadri and his now hot now cold perambulations concerning the upcoming elections are one threat to democracy. On the other hand, terrorists and others of their ilk may not be interested in elections per se, in fact be trying deliberately to create such disturbed conditions that the prospects of the election fade under the blows they continue to deliver against state and society. The problem is that the state, polity and arguably society, seem to have no adequate response to these motivated attempts to bring the country to its knees. On present trends, it seems unlikely that the authorities will arrive at the inescapable conclusions to meet these challenges, which should include a centralized anti-terrorist body with participation of all stakeholders implementing that missing coordinated anti-terrorist strategy, a negotiating initiative on Balochistan, and a sorting out of the mess created in Karachi by uncaring vested interest, political and criminal. Logically, carrying on merrily in the same way may end up upsetting the whole applecart of democracy and the elections. Surely the political class would be the main loser in such a scenario. Can it wake up to the dangers before it is too late?