Last Saturday was just another day in 13-year-old Liaquat Ali's house in Quetta. The young Hazara boy's mother asked him to help her with some chores, but he wanted to go out. After some back and forth of her pleading and him refusing, he walked out. His father went back twice to persuade him to come back and help his mother with the chores.
"I have to go; you won't see me again," he said angrily to his mother. He was wrong. And he was right.
They did see him a short while later. By then, his body had bullet wounds, his bleeding wouldn't stop, and he was in a coma.
His father, Mohammad Akbar, is wracked with guilt. "They said he's unconscious. He never spoke again." Liaquat's words had come true in the most terrible way possible.
The ongoing massacre of Hazaras by extremists in Balochistan is part of the killing of Shias all across the country, which has left hundreds dead and thousands mourning. Millions more have been outraged by the lack of action by the government.
There was a protest demonstration on Brewery Road in Quetta that day against the violence against the Hazaracommunity, only a few minutes away from MohalaBagh where Liaquat Ali lived.
He left the house at 10:30 in the morning. A few minutes later, his father learned that a Hazaraneighbour from his street had become a victim of the violence. He went to their house to console the grieving family and waited for yet another body to arrive. At 11, it was him who needed consoling....Continue Reading....
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