I.A. REHMAN
Published 2014-01-30 07:40:24
THE emergency measures taken after the nationwide protest at the latest round of killing of pilgrims in Mastung district offer little assurance that a way to end the ordeal of the Hazara community has been found.
While no breakthrough in efforts to nab the culprits has been reported public attention has been focused on the air-lifting of hundreds of pilgrims from Dalbandin to Quetta. Welcome though this operation has been it has also thrown up a few disquieting issues.
First, the volume of the annual pilgrim traffic to and from Iran has proved to be quite large, and the need to manage it has obviously been ignored year after year. Secondly, the administration has conceded its inability to guarantee security of road travel. And, thirdly, there is a danger that a large piece of territory may pass into the hands of militants determined to harass the governments of Pakistan and Iran both. Neither air flights nor a ferry service along the Makran coast will alter the situation.
This means that the anti-Hazara militias will have greater freedom and capacity to continue their murderous attacks on the beleaguered community. What does this portend for the Hazaras (the Shia majority among them, as the small number of Sunni Hazaras are not targeted) and Balochistan?
Since no firm attempt has been made to subdue them, the gangs engaged in massacring the Hazaras consider themselves free to persist in their criminal acts and the threat to the Hazaras remains unabated. The seriousness of this threat can be gauged only if one takes stock of Hazara losses since 2003, when their mass killing began. Forty-seven people were killed in July 2003 in an attack on an imambargah; 36 perished in March 2004 when the Ashura procession was attacked; 63 were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a Youm-i-Quds procession in 2010; 26 pilgrims were killed in Mastung in September 2011 and more than 100 were killed in the Alamdar Road massacre last year...Continue Reading...
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Balochistan bleeding
Dr Mohammad Taqi
January 30, 2014
Is the chief minister not aware that the Hazaras cannot move freely between Hazara Town and Mariabad, Quetta without risking executions? That a people are being ghettoised in the 21st century on his watch seems completely lost on Dr Baloch
The beleaguered ShiaHazara community of Quetta has dug yet another mass grave for its loved ones slaughtered in the Mastung bombing by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) as they were returning from a pilgrimage in Iraq and Iran. The Hazaras, one of the most peaceful people in Pakistan, had just commemorated the anniversary of the massacre perpetrated on them by the LeJvia twin suicide bombings last January in Quetta. A hundred HazaraShias died in that attack. Before thatthe LeJ had executed 26 HazaraShias in an ambush in Mastung in September 2011 and another 15 in Quetta in June 2012 as they were returning from a pilgrimage. It seems nothing has changed for the hapless Hazaras. The then provincial and federal governments led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had promised action against the LeJ just as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz(PML-N) has done now. One will have to see it to believe it. Till then, the HazaraShias are on their own.
The cavalier attitude of the Balochistan chief ministers has perhaps also remained the same. When asked about the plight of the HazaraShias, the former chief ministerAslamRaisani offered to send them a truckload of tissue papers. The current chief minister, DrMalikBaloch, was not as callous as MrRaisani and did show up at the peaceful protest organised by the HazaraShias. However, his proposed — and later enforced — solution to the ongoing tragedy was just as inconsiderate. DrBaloch said that the pilgrim buses should stop using the land route through Mastung and go to Karachi instead. He suggested a ferry service between Pakistan and Iran with the voyage starting preferably from Karachi. The television anchor asking him the question might not have known but it is just not possible that DrBaloch is not aware that the shortest route from Quetta to Karachi also goes through Mastung. Whatever the easiest way to Karachi may be, DrBaloch, a supposedly enlightened and progressive leader, was clearly taking a detour around responsibility. What does he have to say about the ShiaHazara vendors getting killed in Quetta? Is the chief minister not aware that the Hazaras cannot move freely betweenHazara Town and Mariabad, Quetta without risking executions? That a people are being ghettoised in the 21st century on his watch seems completely lost on DrBaloch.....Continue Reading...
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
The boy who lived: Mastung attack survivors find solace in unexpected compatriot
By Rabia Ali
Published: January 29, 2014
Eleven-year-old boy lifts the spirits of survivors at hospital.
KARACHI: It is at times of severe distress that a person’s true substance really comes to the fore. It is at these times too that events happen that inspire us to believe there is still hope for this world. One such tale is that of one of the survivors of the Mastung bus bombing, Muhammad Ibtihaj, who has taken up the task of lifting the spirits of the other injured.
The 11-year-old chubby faced with a cute smile can hardly be found at his bed in the children’s ward at the Aga Khan Hospital where he is being treated for scars on his right side of his face – courtesy of the explosion. Rather, the boy takes slow steps, climbs up the stairs and walks up to the ward where seven adult pilgrims are being treated for their burns and other crippling injuries. Unaware of the loved ones he has lost in the incident, Ibtihaj has become a source of welcome relief for the other injured.
“I want to help them because they are in trouble,” smiles the boy shyly, as he shows the thumbs up sign to one patient and then hugs him tight.
“He is more than a brother. His strength keeps us alive,” whispers Hussain Saadat, one of those injured in the explosion, as his eyes fill with tears.
Clad in a blue patient’s shirt, white trousers, and a muffler he was wearing when the attack occurred, Ibtihaj, whose name means happiness in Arabic, has certainly become a source of joy for those battling for their lives. He sits with them, laughs and jokes and even complains to his father when they don’t eat.
Zakir Hussain, who has lost both his legs, shakes his hands and smiles, “We became friends on the bus and now we are here together.”
The boy does not show signs of being traumatised by the tragic incident, and only says this about it: “They should be punished – those who did bad things to us.”
A student of fifth grade at the APSC Seven Streams School in Quetta, the boy and his sister came into the limelight after their picture in school uniforms, winking and rolling out their tongues, was shared and circulated by many on the social media, including Pakistan Peoples Party’s Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
Looking at the picture now in his elder brother’s phone, Ibtihaj, who is a Barcelona football fan, and has four Karate belts, recalls, “I like this picture. It was taken five months ago.”
Also present at the hospital is Ibtihaj’s father, Jawad Hazara, who had stayed behind while his family had gone for the pilgrimage. A businessman by profession, Hazara is visibly traumatised by the tragedy he has faced. “Imagine a man’s condition when he can’t recognise his own family. I could not discern the burnt bodies of my loved ones.”
Ibtihaj’s elder brother, Mairaj, was one of the other lucky survivors of the incident. They had both been sitting at the back of the bus when the explosion occurred. This is probably what saved their life.
“He is very brave. I’m more scared than him. He wants to join the air force when he grows up, but now impressed by his behaviour, I want him to work for humanity.”
Published in The Express Tribune, January 29th, 2014.
Published: January 29, 2014
Eleven-year-old boy lifts the spirits of survivors at hospital.
KARACHI: It is at times of severe distress that a person’s true substance really comes to the fore. It is at these times too that events happen that inspire us to believe there is still hope for this world. One such tale is that of one of the survivors of the Mastung bus bombing, Muhammad Ibtihaj, who has taken up the task of lifting the spirits of the other injured.
The 11-year-old chubby faced with a cute smile can hardly be found at his bed in the children’s ward at the Aga Khan Hospital where he is being treated for scars on his right side of his face – courtesy of the explosion. Rather, the boy takes slow steps, climbs up the stairs and walks up to the ward where seven adult pilgrims are being treated for their burns and other crippling injuries. Unaware of the loved ones he has lost in the incident, Ibtihaj has become a source of welcome relief for the other injured.
“I want to help them because they are in trouble,” smiles the boy shyly, as he shows the thumbs up sign to one patient and then hugs him tight.
“He is more than a brother. His strength keeps us alive,” whispers Hussain Saadat, one of those injured in the explosion, as his eyes fill with tears.
Clad in a blue patient’s shirt, white trousers, and a muffler he was wearing when the attack occurred, Ibtihaj, whose name means happiness in Arabic, has certainly become a source of joy for those battling for their lives. He sits with them, laughs and jokes and even complains to his father when they don’t eat.
Zakir Hussain, who has lost both his legs, shakes his hands and smiles, “We became friends on the bus and now we are here together.”
The boy does not show signs of being traumatised by the tragic incident, and only says this about it: “They should be punished – those who did bad things to us.”
A student of fifth grade at the APSC Seven Streams School in Quetta, the boy and his sister came into the limelight after their picture in school uniforms, winking and rolling out their tongues, was shared and circulated by many on the social media, including Pakistan Peoples Party’s Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
Looking at the picture now in his elder brother’s phone, Ibtihaj, who is a Barcelona football fan, and has four Karate belts, recalls, “I like this picture. It was taken five months ago.”
Also present at the hospital is Ibtihaj’s father, Jawad Hazara, who had stayed behind while his family had gone for the pilgrimage. A businessman by profession, Hazara is visibly traumatised by the tragedy he has faced. “Imagine a man’s condition when he can’t recognise his own family. I could not discern the burnt bodies of my loved ones.”
Ibtihaj’s elder brother, Mairaj, was one of the other lucky survivors of the incident. They had both been sitting at the back of the bus when the explosion occurred. This is probably what saved their life.
“He is very brave. I’m more scared than him. He wants to join the air force when he grows up, but now impressed by his behaviour, I want him to work for humanity.”
Published in The Express Tribune, January 29th, 2014.
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