Five killed in Quetta violence

Monday, October 15, 2012
From Print Edition

QUETTA: At least three people were killed and one injured in an incident of firing in the provincial capital on Sunday night.

Deputy Inspector General Investigation Police Hamid Shakil said that unknown armed men riding a bike opened indiscriminate fire on a Suzuki car near the City police station, killing one person and injuring three others. The assailants managed to escape. Later, two of the injured succumbed to their injuries in hospital.

The police have cordoned off the entire area to trace the attackers. A further probe was under way.In another incident, a man was injured by unknown armedmen over an old enmity here at Killi Bangulzai near the Sariab area of the provincial capital on Sunday. According to police, the victim was identified as Maulana Juma Khan.

Meanwhile, a police constable injured his colleague at the University of Balochistan after an exchange of hot words. Both were on security duty there. PPI adds: Two persons were killed and three others sustained serious injuries in a sectarian attack here on Sunday evening.

According to details, a local jeweller Ishaq, his brother Ismail and two sons Salman and Naseem closed their shop and went to their home. On the way home when they had reached Abdul Sattar road, terrorists opened fire on their vehicle.

As a result, Ishaq and Ismail died on the spot. Two sons of Ishaq, namely Salman and Naseem, sustained serious injuries. A rickshaw driver Abdul Hannan was also injured in the firing. They were shifted to the civil hospital and then to CMH for treatment.

Three vehicles were also badly damaged in the firing.After the firing, a fear and panic gripped the Liaqat Bazaar and adjoining areas. Shopkeepers immediately pulled down their shutters and the area became deserted.

The News 

گزارش سفر استاد محمد کریم خلیلی به ولایت بامیان

Two killed in Quetta firing

October 14, 2012 - Updated 190 PKT
From Web Edition

QUETTA: Two people from the Hazara community were killed during a firing incident here on Sunday.

The incident took place on Abdul Sattar Road when unknown gunmen opened fire on a vehicle. Three others were injured and have been shifted to the Civil Hospital.

The area has been cordoned off by the police and an investigation has been launched. Police have also recovered a 9MM pistol from the site.

The News 

Where do we go from here?

On October 4, a Hazara public official Sikander Ali was killed and two other men were injured in an attack on their vehicle on the National Highway near Kuchlak. Days later, two Shia men were killed in Quetta.

Almost 1,000 Shias, mostly Hazaras, have been killed in Quetta in the last 10 years. Although attacks on Shias have increased across Pakistan, the Hazara ethnic community in Balochistan has been especially targeted. One in 500 people of this small community of half a million have been killed in Balochistan since 1999. Around 25,000 Hazaras - about 5 percent of the entire Hazara population in Balochistan - have left the province for Afghanistan, Europe and Australia since 2001.

Most young Hazara people cannot attend universities and colleges in Quetta because of security fears. Data compiled by the Hazara Students Federation shows admissions of Hazara students in Balochistan University have declined by 42 percent since 2008, and enrolment in colleges outside Hazara-dominated areas has decreased by almost 95 percent.....Continue Reading.... 

نامزدهای دریافت جایزه صلح نوبل

A DESPERATE VOYAGE: HOW MUCH WOULD YOU RISK TO START A NEW LIFE IN AUSTRALIA?

"I could see the death in front of me" — listen to the hair-raising reality of seeking asylum in Australia. Two ship-wrecked asylum seekers cheat death, make a daring escape, and now face the wrenching choices of a life in limbo.

“ Hi Aubrey, it’s Barat Ali Batoor. I’ve escaped. I’m on the way to Jakarta. Where are you?”

FIRST DAY: HAZARA ASYLUM SEEKERS HUDDLING BELOW THE DECK OF THE BOAT ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE JOURNEY TO AUSTRALIA. MOST PASSENGERS WERE INSTRUCTED TO STAY OUT OF SIGHT TO AVOID DRAWING SUSPICION FROM OTHER VESSELS.

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“ Now I can feel how the death is, how you see the death. When you see it really close to you.”
“ The boat is not in a good condition to take you further. The water is also very bad. So if you go ahead, I will take you, but that is completely, 100 per cent death and you will be responsible for your lives.”
“ We can’t live in Afghanistan or Pakistan. If I got back to Afghanistan or Pakistan, I will be killed.”


It was 5am when I was woken by a phone call.


"Hi Aubrey, it's Barat Ali Batoor. I've escaped," he said, his voice buzzing with adrenaline. "I'm on the way to Jakarta. Where are you?"

Just the previous day, I had been talking to Batoor on the phone and he had been in despair. Despair because Batoor had made a break for Australia in a shoddy wooden boat with more than 90 other Hazara asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The boat had nearly sunk in rough seas, and had been forced to run ashore in a remote corner of western Java. After two days stranded in the jungle, they had been captured.

When Batoor had first called, he had been on his way to immigration... Continue Reading... 

[David Ignatius] Beyond the Afghan dead end

WASHINGTON ― While the overlooked war in Afghanistan grinds on, a group of officials in Washington, Kabul and Islamabad are exploring a bare-bones strategy that would narrow each side’s demands to a set of minimum conditions for escaping the current diplomatic dead end.

The aim is to create a pathway for the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from a war that almost nobody sees as “winnable” by military force alone. The goal is a framework for political transition where each side’s demands are boiled down to the irreducible essentials ― providing a better deal for each party than they could get from battling on.

U.S. officials involved in the informal discussions liken this approach to the 1993 Downing Street Declaration on Northern Ireland that narrowed Catholic and Protestant demands to the basic items that then created space to negotiate the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended the civil conflict there.

U.S. officials have explored such an approach with Gen. Ehsan Ul-Haq, a former chief of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence directorate and a former chairman of the Pakistani joint chiefs of staff. He outlined his seven-point “road map” during a recent conversation at the Nixon Center in Washington. The aim of this exercise, he said, was to focus on political transition, rather than the military impasse.

Haq sees two baseline U.S. demands: No al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan, and no return to the Taliban’s oppressive policies toward women; the Taliban, according to Haq, has just one irreducible demand, for no more foreign forces in Afghanistan....Continue Reading....