Editorial; Tales of terror

Editorial

Saturday, June 30, 2012
From Print Edition

Messages of hatred, through bombs and killings, continue to be delivered across the country with militants – motivated by different ideas and ‘inspired’ by different aims and ideologies – striking at will in various places, in various ways and aiming at different targets. Reports narrating the details of these attacks have become the norm, with their tales of death and injury. Now we read such a story again, once more from Quetta where a bus carrying Hazara pilgrims across the border from Iran on Thursday was attacked as it entered Hazar Ganj. Thirteen people were killed and 40 on board the bus were injured. The bomb that caused that havoc appears to have been planted in a car along the route. Like those before it, the attack was well-planned and expertly executed. The toll of the dead may rise given the gravity of some of the injuries suffered by the victims now lying in hospital. Clearly the motive was sectarian as it has always been in similar attacks in the past and the present. There was another incident of terrorist violence on that same day. In the Bara area of Khyber Agency, an army vehicle was attacked with a home-made explosive device killing eight soldiers of the Pakistan Army including a captain. Again it is not hard to know who was responsible or why the army personnel died. Many other similar attacks have taken place before.

What is difficult to know and understand in the former case is the ‘unchecked’ consistency with which a particular community is being targeted with the government and the law-enforcement agencies playing a role no better than that of a bystander. The pain and agony suffered by the Hazaras is immense. Living constantly under the fear of death, so many of them have been forced to abandon their work and education. Even if terror has become so much a part of life in many areas of this country, it still boggles the mind how a process of systematic elimination of the Hazaras in Balochistan by sectarian extremists belonging mostly to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has gone on undeterred, with little apparently being done by those at the helm of affairs to protect the community that is being attacked and slaughtered and punish those who, it seems, would have nothing less than genocide as their aim. After the latest incident, words of condolence and directions for an enquiry have, once again, come from the prime minister and other officials, as they always do. Such condolences have started to sound obscene now. A government’s job is a bit more than just mourning along with the grieved as their neighbours do. And such enquiries, if they are indeed held, lead nowhere. Protests and demonstrations have been held and strikes observed after each such incident by parties representing the Hazaras and also other groups, and Quetta is seeing more of these after the latest carnage. Will these rallies, and slogans of protests raised by them, ever shake the government out of its criminal slumber and move the intelligence agencies into doing their job – that of identifying those planning this crime and tracking them down?

The News 

Hazara attack

From the Newspaper

THE story is not new. But with each attack, the targeting of the Shia Hazara community becomes a more firmly entrenched feature of life in Balochistan today. Thursday’s bomb attack on a bus of pilgrims returning from Iran was only the latest in a string of incidents that have taken the lives of at least 60 Hazaras this year alone, including students and people from the community simply going about their daily business. Easily identifiable because of their physical features, neighbourhoods and the routes they take for routine pilgrimages, Balochistan’s Hazaras are now sitting ducks, victims of a relentless campaign that can only be compared to ethnic cleansing in its laser-like focus and its desire to kill as many members of the community as possible.

Given this focus and the pattern of attacks that has been established, the inability of the Balochistan government and paramilitary troops to protect the community can only be the result of extreme incompetence or a lack of commitment. Many of the attacks take place along the set routes that buses take when transporting pilgrims to and from Iran. Policing along these routes has reportedly been stepped up, but surely they can be monitored in a way that is better able to identify suspicious activity or prevent attackers from planting bombs. As for police escorts to accompany pilgrims, these have clearly not been adequate; if Balochistan’s politicians can be provided with extensive and expensive security arrangements, why is the same level of protection not being provided at least to Hazara pilgrims?

The more effective method, of course, would be to tackle this problem at its roots, going after the militants and dismantling their infrastructure rather than trying to prevent already planned attacks at the eleventh hour. Balochistan’s anti-Shia militancy has morphed into a force in its own right, with its own motivations, operational bases and centres of propaganda. For this, too, there are clues: the locations of madressahs propagating anti-Shia views and some of the bases of the Balochistan arm of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi have been identified, and include the chief minister’s own base of Mastung. In the face of such a predictable pattern of attacks and available information about those behind them, the failure to prevent them has only fuelled speculation that Balochistan’s civilian and security establishments are deliberately not taking action against sectarian militancy. These theories reflect the lack of trust in the provincial set-up, which is seen as being focused on clamping down on separatists instead. Whatever the thinking among state actors, the continued targeting of the Hazaras is increasingly becoming a massive abdication of responsibility on their part.

Dawn

Imran Khan speaks against Hazara’s genocide

Saturday, June 30th, 2012 7:36:09 by Faisal Farooq




Terming the incident barbaric and crucify, Imran Khan, the cricketer-turned-politician, has strongly condemned attack on a bus carrying Shia-pilgrims from Iran to Quetta which led to loss of 15 innocent lives.

In his view, the attack was part of a systematic wave of violent incident against Hazara community whose 60 people have been brutally killed during past six months.

He tweeted, “We condemn the terrorist attack on pilgrims’ bus in Quetta. Our prayers go out to all the families of the victims & for recovery of injured”.

The Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was of the opinion that there could be serious repercussions if dangerous trend of increasing frequency and intensity of violent attacks against Hazara Community is not reversed in the country.

“I condemn the rising tide of sectarian killings in Balochistan and the shameful failure of the government to assert its writ in the province”, he added.

Commenting on the law and order situation in Balochistan, Khan said the security situation in the province was extremely uncertain and continued attacks against a particular community would further push the region into state of a complete chaos and disorder.

Despite loss of so many innocent lives, constant failure to ensure the safety of Hazara community is criminal negligence on part of the present government and law enforcement agencies.

He was of the opinion that the situation demands government to undertake emergency measures to stop violent attacks against a specific sect of people.

Imran Khan made a demand to the government and concerned authorities to take stern action against banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) which openly claimed responsibility of this barbaric attack.

The PTI leader expressing complete solidarity with Hazara community conveyed deepest condolences to bereaved families.

A blast in the Hazarganji area of Quetta targeted a bus carrying Shia pilgrims from Taftan to the provincial capital, killing 16 people and injuring another 30.

Balochistan has become an increasing flashpoint for sectarian violence between Sunni Muslims and minority Shia, who account for around a fifth of the country’s population of over 170 million.

News Pakistan

Attack on Hazara community: Quetta traders shut shops, mourn deaths

By Our Correspondent
Published: June 30, 2012


Policemen stand guard during a shutter-down strike in Quetta on Friday. PHOTO: PPI
QUETTA:

Traders shuttered their shops in the city on Friday to protest a deadly bomb attack on a bus carrying Shia pilgrims a day earlier.

Fourteen pilgrims from the Hazara community, including women, were killed in the attack which, police believe, was carried out by a suicide bomber. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi sectarian extremist group claimed responsibility for the carnage.

The Hazara Democratic, Tahfuz-e-Izadari Council, Tehreek Nifaz-i-Fiqa-e-Jaffaria and Balochistan Shia Conference had given the call for Friday’s strike which was supported by trader unions and political parties.

All business centres and shopping malls in downtown areas, including Jinnah Road, Abdul Sattar Road, Kansi Road, Alamdar Road, Thoughy Road, Brewery Road, Mission Road, McChangi Road, Prince Road, Liaquat Bazaar, Fatima Jinnah Road and Masjid Road, remained closed throughout the day.

Attendance in government offices, banks and semi-government establishments remained very thin. Heavy contingents of law-enforcement agencies were deployed in parts of the city to maintain order. Law enforcers detained a dozen people for bullying shopkeepers and forcing them to shut their shops in different neighbourhoods of the city.

Members from the Hazara community also staged a protest demonstration at Brewery Road, where they burnt tyres and blocked the road to register their protest against Thursday’s attack. They chanted slogans against the provincial government and demanded the immediate arrest of the culprits.

Meanwhile, funeral prayers for the victims were offered at Alamadar Road and Hazara graveyard on Friday.

HRCP condemns killings

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has accused the government of neglect in countering terrorist activities aimed at targeting citizens for their religious affiliations. In a statement issued on Friday, the HRCP regretted the loss of life and injuries caused in Thursday’s attack on Shia pilgrims.

A similar attack occurred in Mastung last year, over which the government failed to take action, the HRCP said in the statement. It regretted that the attack occurred on the bus despite it being escorted by the police.

The HRCP claimed that with more than 60 Shias killed in Balochistan this year, the government had either been ‘unwilling’ or ‘unable’ to prevent the killings. (With additional reporting by Aroosa Shaukat in Lahore)

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30th, 2012.

Covering Pilgrims' Bus Attack

Bloodied dreams, wall of silence

From the Newspaper | Abbas Nasir |

WE have made this Islamic Republic such a heaven on earth that we struggle to find words, often fight over these, to describe what its proud sons are capable of.

Just two days ago, someone asked on Twitter why our Fourth Estate calls bloody attacks on the Shia-Hazaras in Quetta ‘sectarian violence’. “Isn’t it Shia genocide?” I dived into various dictionaries but couldn’t come up with a definitive answer.

Butchery, slaughter, carnage, mass murder and of course genocide have been variously used to describe such bloodlust as is being evidenced in (not just) the Balochistan capital. Your vocabulary is as good as mine.

But will finding the correct word, using the most appropriate, accurate terminology alter the bloody ground reality or render it any clearer? Not really. Then, aren’t there even more significant questions to be asked?

Such as what drives our propensity to hate so much that even a name arouses the vilest of passions. How vile? Well, vile enough for us to kill. Didn’t you hear the ‘motive’ for the killing of a KESC official in Karachi, was said to be his Shia-sounding name though in fact he wasn’t.

How did we get here? Don’t you wish you knew? All we can see is when a state thinks nothing of using an indoctrinated non-state cast for its ‘strategic objectives’ it is but a small step for some of these villainous actors to start pursuing their own ideological agenda, no matter how toxic.

And what do we do? We prioritise. In Balochistan, our first priority is to tackle those who are ‘threatening the integrity of the state at the behest of their foreign masters’. These ‘misguided’ militants can be dealt with later if at all, even brought back on the rails as they are patriotic.

We are defending the country against external threats. All else must be secondary. One day the citadel of Islam will become that for certain. What’s the worry if for now it resembles no more than a slaughterhouse soaked in the blood of its innocent sons and daughters?

When you see the daily relentless slaughter of the Shia-Hazaras in Quetta (frankly, it’s pointless to keep count when you know it’ll need to be updated every 24 hours if not sooner) and similar hatred at work elsewhere from Chilas to Karachi, what do you do?

Well, many Shia-Hazaras say the electronic media, in particular, prefers to shut its eyes or just look away rather than acknowledge the horror. Perhaps they are right. Religious fanaticism that drives people to mass murder isn’t half as sexy as politicians tearing each other limb from limb on live telly.

Everyone is stepping over each other to please the latest centre of power in the country, the esteemed black-robed judges. The military and its intelligence apparatus continue to sell with, dare I say, consummate ease its national security threat perspective to journalists.

It may itself be under siege but even a government that has failed at almost everything except delivering on a hearty legislative agenda still has enough ideological support or the means to buy a voice or two that counts in its favour.

But who’ll march for the Shia-Hazaras, they ask. They have little hope in a decadent government whose chief executive is either so disinterested or feels so powerless that his detractors now count the number of days he is able to spend in the province he represents each month.

He prefers the handlebars of his Harley Davidson to ride around the federal capital and entertain himself rather than demonstrate the steel required to steer his troubled, torn province to safety as he was elected to do. Sincere apologies if such reports are mere propaganda.

What isn’t propaganda is that (given the size of the community) a disproportionately large number of Shia-Hazaras have been killed in and around Quetta. This happened not as they planned or executed acts of aggression against anyone. Their crime: being easily identifiable as Shia-Hazaras.

You haven’t heard many Hazara voices, have you? Here is one. Saleem Javed is a doctor of medicine and a blogger who tweets @msaleemjaved. In his own words, he so effectively articulates how it was and is for his community.

“Being a Hazara was a matter of pride. We grew up with dreams to take part in Pakistan’s development with devotion and sincerity as our forefathers did. Be it in the field of education, sports, politics or defence. We were glad as everybody thought we were successful in achieving our goals.

“But things have changed greatly since 1999. We feel being subjected to persecution, prejudice and discrimination almost on a daily basis. We feel as if there is always somebody mapping out a plan to attack us?

“You feel as if the state of Pakistan has totally abandoned you. As if the security forces are facilitating your murderers. As if the media is mocking your death. As if the human rights organisations are turning a blind eye on your genocide. And worst of all, as if your fellow countrymen are celebrating your death.

“As a Hazara you are afraid of a policeman, afraid of any armed man. We don’t even trust the Pakistan Army, top judiciary … almost nobody. Because nobody has ever heard your voice over the last 13 years. You are afraid of going to university because somebody is lying in wait to kill you.

“You can’t even escape. You need a passport for that. But you feel you’ll be murdered if you go to the passport office. You can’t go to any office for that matter because you will be identified, chased and finally shot in the head.

“You feel that even your neighbours are annoyed by your screaming and want you to stop shouting.”

Don’t let your fears about your neighbours stop you, my good friend. Or we’ll be left with no hope at all.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Dawn

کویته پاکستان