With the number of deaths rising in Pakistan from the Chinese Coronavirus so have tensions between the authorities and religious extremists. Although Pakistan claims that they have had 86 deaths from and 5038 cases of Coronavirus infection, these figures may not be entirely accurate due to the way that Pakistan has been mismanaged all these decades. There may be many more Covid19 cases and deaths that are being missed in Pakistan through not being properly recorded. Pakistan also came very late to the idea of trying to prevent the spread of Covid19 and had already seen a massive gathering at a tented camp in early March of Muslims from across the world for a religious gathering. Although the gathering was itself cancelled at the very last minute, the attendees had already arrived in Pakistan. These attendees may have brought additional Covid19 infections to Pakistan and may also have transmitted Covid19 to other places across the world including Gaza.

Pakistan has also been the victim of appalling fiscal mismanagement since its creation by governments of various Islamist, military or democratically elected hues. Because of mismanagement and poor, often corrupt governance, many of Pakistan’s citizens are extremely poor and options available to other more well run governments, such as lockdowns, are not available to the government of Pakistan. If they went down this path then tens of thousands, possibly millions of Pakistanis would starve.

Compounding Pakistan’s problems are the issues surrounding religious extremism. Despite high level forums of Islamic religious scholars counselling the closure of mosques, there have been some mosques that have stayed open. In the case featured below, these mosques have attracted violent mobs who attack police trying to enforce some semblance of order to the disorderly savages who believe that nobody, not even the government, has the power to shut down a mosque. The report below from the Pakistan Daily Times (h/t ROP) shows just how violent Pakistan’s Islamic religious extremists have become.

The Pakistan Daily Times said:

A woman police officer was injured after being pelted with stones when police tried to stop a large number of people from offering Friday prayers at a mosque in Karachi, a private TV channel reported.

The incident took place in Orangi Town when police came under attack after attempting to stop a large number of people from offering Friday prayers in a mosque over violation of Section 144. The police contingent came under attack and were pelted with stones. The situation was brought under control when an additional contingent of police and Rangers arrived at the scene. SSP South told the TV channel that action will be taken against those who attacked the police contingent.

I’d like to think I could trust the statement of the Pakistani police that the rock throwers would be punished. Sadly I have little confidence that the police will do so. After all these violent thugs are Islamic religious extremists and such people have an awful lot of influence in Pakistan. Politicians in Pakistan walk a tightrope where they have to placate the Islamic headbangers and appease them because they are so numerous and have so much political and communal power. Failing to appease the nutjobs would most likely result in much greater violence than what has been seen recently in Karachi and although the Pakistani military is quite powerful, it is also riddled with Islamist sympathisers who would most likely side with the nutters rather than the government.

What should worry the more sensibly minded Pakistani, yes they do exist, is that this clash happened on a regular Friday. When Ramadan comes around on the 23^rd April there is likely to be more infractions of social distancing rules in Pakistan, more mosques defying the law and staying open and more violent gatherings on the streets of Pakistan’s towns and cities. Pakistan is yet another Islamic failed state and the impact of the Chinese Covid19 virus is going to highlight just how bad a failure of a state Pakistan has become.