‘Rulers helpless in Balochistan’
By: Bari Baloch | April 20, 2012 |


QUETTA - Strongly condemning the recent wave of sectarian target killings in Quetta, PML-N President Nawaz Sharif said that under a well-knit conspiracy law and order was being deteriorated in Balochistan.

He said the incidents of sectarian targeted killings were stoking hatred amongst people while the government seemed helpless to curb these incidents. ‘We should not be late even a single moment to wipe out terrorism,’ he added.

He expressed these views while talking to Shia Conference leaders – Ashraf Zaidi and Haji Abdul Qayyum of Hazara Qaumi Jirga via telephone on Thursday. People of Shia community and General Secretary of PPP Women Wing Rukhsana Ahmed Ali were also present on the occasion.

PML-N leader and former MNA Marvi Memon visited Nichari Imam Bargah on the special directives of Nawaz Sharif to condole the recent killings of members of Hazara community.

Expressing serious concern over the mounting incidents of targeted killings in Quetta, he said the helplessness of both provincial and Federal governments was quite surprising.

‘If such incidents were not curbed immediately their results would be horrible. Thus provincial and Federal governments should take prompt steps to end targeted killings,’ he pointed out during conversation with Shia leaders.

He said that incidents of targeted killing were aimed at fuelling hatred amongst people belonging to different nationalities and pushing them towards further divisions.

‘All people, including political leaders and members of civil society will have to play their responsibility to frustrate these nefarious designs’, he stressed.

On the occasion, Marvi Mehmon said that everybody knew who was backing extremist forces but despite it neither action was being taken against them nor Hazara community was being provided security.

Like Hindu community now Hazara community had also compelled to move other safer places, she regretted.

Marvi said that PML-N had always voiced against targeted killings in Balochistan and would continue its effort to end killings of innocent people.

The heads of different Shia organisations told PML-N leader that more than 600 Shia Muslims had been killed in different targeted killing incidents but the government miserably failed to arrest the culprits, therefore, Hazara community demands imposition of Governor’s rule in the province.

This news was published in print paper. Access complete paper of this day.

THE NATION

Atrocities in Balochistan have exceeded all limits: Nawaz

20 April, 2012



QUETTA: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Nawaz Sharif said on Thursday federal and provincial governments had completely failed to address Balochistan issues, particularly the law and order situation in the province.

Addressing a meeting at Imambargah Nechari in Quetta via telephone, the PML-N chief said, "Atrocities in Balochistan have exceeded all limits."

"The government has become apathetic and unresponsive to the situation in Balochistan," he said, adding that there should not be any delay in acting against a "handful" of extremists.

The former prime minister expressed his resentment to the unabated sectarian killing of members of the Hazara community.

"The government should have taken action against terrorists disturbing peace in Quetta," he said, adding that it was a conspiracy to divide people on ethnic and sectarian grounds. He said responsibility lied on all people and political parties to play their role and frustrate this conspiracy.

Nawaz Sharif said the PML-N would make all possible efforts to resolve issues facing Balochistan.

Separately, PML-N leader Marvi Memon held a meeting with members of the Hazara community and expressed her grief and sorrow over the recent killings of Shias.

Majlis Wahdatul Muslimeen General Secretary Maqsood Domki and leaders of the Shia Conference told Memon that more than 800 Hazaras had so far fallen victims to sectarian killings.

"The provincial government has completely failed to counter these senseless killings," they told the PML-N leader. They also called for the Governor's Rule in the province "since the administration has failed to overcome the menace of target killings".

Shia leader Ashraf Zaidi said it was failure of the government that terrorists from banned outfits escaped from prisons and not arrested again. "The Hazara community has raised its concern against target killings in Islamabad but it received a lukewarm response from rulers."

PML-N tables motion against Balochistan killings

ISLAMABAD: Opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Thursday submitted an adjournment motion in the National Assembly over the unabated spree of target killings, especially of the Hazara community, in Balochistan.

The PML-N, expressing serious concern over the killings, called for adjourning of the proceedings of the House when it meets, to take into consideration the violence in Balochistan as a matter of urgent public importance.

The National Assembly is expected to hold next week its first session of the new parliamentary year, where the PML-N is likely to raise the issue strongly. The adjournment motion of the party said that killings of innocent people, particularly the Hazara community, and the complete failure of the government to protect the life and property of the people of the province had sent a wave of concern across the country.

"This act of killing innocent people has caused a wave of resentment among the public," the motion pointed out, demanding the issue be discussed in the House. The adjournment motion was moved jointly by 20 lawmakers in the Lower House.

However, the main movers were PML-N lawmakers from Balochistn Lt Gen (r) Abdul Qadir Baloch and Sardar Yaqoob Khan Nasir. Both the parliamentarians have raised the issue of deteriorating situation in Balochistan time and again in the assembly.

Pakistan Tribune

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HR body seeks in-camera briefing on Shia killings

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD - Directing the Interior Ministry, Intelligence Bureau (IB) DG and ISI chief to separately brief it in-camera over the issue of Shias’ targeted killings, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Human Rights on Wednesday observed that some hidden forces were responsible for the killings in various parts of the country.

The meeting of the committee, which was held under the chairmanship of Riaz Fatyana, was of the view that recent killings of Shias in particular parts of the country were not the result of sectarian clashes, but some “third force” was targeting Shias to create law and order crisis in the country. He said clerics of both sides were in agreement to restore peace in Gilgit-Baltistan, Dera Ismail Khan and Quetta.

The main motive behind the killings was to disintegrate the country, the committee members observed. They said law enforcement agencies, police and intelligence agencies had completely failed to control such incidents and identify the culprits.

Pakistan Today

The enemy within

From the Newspaper | I.A Rehman | 

THE enemy within has been nibbling away at Pakistan’s vitals with vastly increased ferociousness and there is little evidence to suggest that the monster is being tamed.

The latest wave of sectarian violence in Gilgit-Baltistan has been going on for more than six weeks. On the last day of February, 18 people belonging to the territory were brutally shot dead after being forced out of buses in the Kohistan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

After the victims’ identity had been established with the help of their national identity cards they were lined up and gunned down by a firing squad whose members were wearing military uniforms. The grisly operation had obviously been planned well in advance and bore the stamp of professionalism. The authorities made some noise but failed to nab the killers and eventually took refuge under the excuse that the culprits had crossed over the national frontier.

They were proved wrong on April 3 when the monster of intolerance raised its head in Chilas. Again a large band of armed militants stopped several buses on the Karakoram Highway and picked out members of the Shia community for slaughtering. This time the authorities chose to display their armed might. The army was called in and a nine-day long curfew was imposed. Whether this had any effect on the perpetrators of the sectarian strife is not known; what is known is the unbearable hardship caused to the curfew-bound population.

Referring to the “terrible condition of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan”, a student wrote on April 15: “…[T]he two million people of Gilgit-Baltistan are hostages in the name of security for the last 12 days. The transport system was closed down from the first day and that has caused shortage of food. There is no medicine left in hospitals. They blocked the cellular services and that cut the links among relatives. We don’t know what is happening to them.

“The government has failed to maintain law and order. Instead of taking serious action it only makes statements. The trouble is within a five-kilometre area of Gilgit. Four forces were operating in the area — the FC, Gilgit-Baltistan Scouts, Rangers and the police. Now they have called in the army. No improvement yet. We are a peace-loving people. We want peace at any cost. For that we are ready to support the government and all law-enforcing agencies. At the same time we are human beings. We need food for our survival. We need medicines. We need your support.”

The young student’s cry of anguish is without art or labour and must carry greater weight than the empty rhetoric of professional politicians.

Now peace is reported to be returning to the trouble spots in Gilgit-Baltistan. But for how long? There is no use pretending that successive eruptions of sectarian violence in that territory are of local origin or are caused by stray incidents. The people of Gilgit-Baltistan have been the target of discrimination and oppression because their majority subscribes to the Shia faith. For this reason, they were denied elementary legal and political rights for decades.

Now their strategic location has become a source of their misery. The new breed of militant hard-liners is apparently determined to subdue the local population by any means, including a forced change in the territory’s demography. Thus, the sooner the government stops treating the periodic bloodletting in Gilgit-Baltistan as a routine law-and-order matter the better it will be.

But Gilgit-Baltistan is not the only place where Pakistan’s worst enemy is seen in action. At the other end of the country, it is targeting the Hazara community of Quetta in what is looking more and more like a sectarian-motivated pogrom. Two dozen Hazara Shias were cut down within three days.

The victims have done everything possible to remind the government of its duty to protect them. They have curtailed their normal activities and have been disposing of their property at throwaway prices — this is perhaps one of the objectives of their tormentors. Here too the perpetrators of violence are believed to be the extremists from outside Balochistan who have set up regular militias with the purpose of challenging the existing order in Pakistan and the neighbouring countries.

This enemy can be seen elsewhere, too. In Karachi the, same hand is targeting Shia professionals. Recently, it displayed its handiwork in Chenab Nagar where it assumed the form of a few policemen. They tortured an innocent teacher to an extent that he could not survive. Torture to death in custody is quite common, but since the victim in this case was an Ahmedi citizen they lost all sense of human mercy.

Unfortunately, this enemy within has been allowed to grow stronger and stronger over the past many decades. The state tolerated him as an ally in its confrontation with the advocates of a democratic, egalitarian order. The military rulers nourished him and pampered him as a key figure in their strategy to conquer the land and the people of Pakistan over and over again. Now he is openly challenging the constitution and the laws of Pakistan and has established his monopoly as the sole interpreter of the official religion of the state.

At the moment, this enemy is targeting only the communities vulnerable because of their belief or the parties in power. But he will not spare the opposition parties either. The religio-political parties’ turn may come last of all but they too will fall under the axe. It is becoming increasingly clear that Pakistan can somehow scrape through the many crises it faces today but it will not be able to survive the drift towards a capitulation to the demons of religious intolerance.

The ubiquitous enemy we are talking about has certain advantages over the state gendarmes. He can easily melt away in any congregation. He is disarmingly modest, does not appear to be materially corrupt and the corruption of his mind is too subtle to be evident to ordinary citizens.

Also, unlike the mercenaries in state service, he believes in his mission and is keen to die for it. It will not be possible to defeat this enemy unless all parties and people of goodwill come together, sink their differences and establish all Pakistani citizens’ equal right to the freedom of belief. That is the only route of salvation and we do not have much time to cover it.

DAWN