Five (Hazara vegetable vendors) gunned down in Quetta's Hazar Ganji

September 01, 2012 - Updated 912 PKT
From Web Edition



QUETTA: Unknown gunmen ambushed a vehicle carrying five passengers and killed all of them in Hazar Ganji area Saturday, Geo News reported.

According to police, the incident took place near Sabzi Mandi in Hazar Ganji area of Quetta when the five passengers were on their way. Unidentified miscreants opened indiscriminate fire and as a result, all five passengers died on the spot.

The News 

Death in Quetta

Editorial

Saturday, September 01, 2012
From Print Edition

It would be surprising if we were to pick up a newspaper and see no headlines narrating tales of sectarian or other kinds of violence from Balochistan. The latest news tells of the killing of additional sessions judge Syed Zulfiqar Naqvi who was gunned down along with his driver and guard while on his way to work from the GOR sector in Quetta. The death is being treated as yet another sectarian killing, with Shia groups and the legal fraternity staging protests across the country. An investigation has been ordered. Will it lead anywhere, we ask? We really do not know. Despite similar inquiries, the frequency of sectarian killings has only grown over the last few years, with the Hazara Shia community bearing the brunt of the killing in many cases. Three more members of that community were shot dead only a few days ago. The murder of the sessions judge was obviously well-planned and carried out by motorcyclists who aimed a hail of bullets into his car as they rode past. It seems obvious that extremist forces are behind the planning and execution of such crimes. Why they cannot be apprehended and a strong message sent out by punishing their leaders under the law is far from clear. The helplessness of the government and the forces of law and order only encourages further violence.

The descent of Balochistan into a spiral of endless death has been recorded by the autonomous Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in its latest report based on a fact-finding mission to the province. The report notes that things appear to have worsened since 2011 when the last fact-finding mission to the province conducted its work. Greater Talibanisation and the growth of extremism have been noted during the intervening period. The Commission also notes that violence runs in layers, with criminal elements, nationalist elements and sectarian elements all involved in one way or the other. The lack of governance adds to the entire ambit of problems as does the growing rage and feeling of alienation among the people of Balochistan. The pertinent questions at this stage are: why are the authorities unable to ruthlessly clamp down on sectarian forces that operate freely in the area? Are there any solutions to end this ruthless spiral of killings? We certainly do not see them on the horizon. Sectarian violence is splitting Quetta and Balochistan apart. It has created a terrible sense of fear and adds to the dark clouds that hover continuously over the province. The real tragedy is that no winds are blowing from any other direction to blow these dark clouds away.

The News 

Ships ignored survivors' pleas

A Hazara asylum seeker watched his sister drown when their boat sank en route to Australia, reports Indonesia correspondent Michael Bachelard on Friday.

‘Talebanisation on the rise in Balochistan’

Rehan Siddiqui / 1 September 2012

KARACHI — The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has claimed that Talebanisation was growing in the country’s largest and troubled Balochistan province and its capital Quetta has become a haven for militants.

The latest report by the HRCP on Balochistan came after a mission visited the province from May 15 to 19 to assess the impact of recent measures taken by the government with respect to the province, and to hear suggestions from stakeholders on a way out of the crisis.

“Talebanisation is growing in several areas and, unlike in the past, religious fanaticism is not merely being exported to the province from elsewhere — it is now being bred in Balochistan,” the report said.

It also reported that a growing network of seminaries has contributed to inflame sectarian tensions and militant training camps are reported in the province while the government’s strategy to quell the unrest in the province has largely failed.

The mission, during its stay in Balochistan, met members of the executive, representatives of political parties, civil society organisations, relatives of missing persons, religious and ethnic minority communities, businessmen, lawyers, journalists, teachers, students and senior government officials.

According to the report, the situation in Balochistan, in many fundamental respects, has not changed since HRCP’s last fact-finding mission to the province in 2011. Enforced disappearances continue in the province as does the dumping of bodies and impunity for perpetrators.

Frontier Corps and intelligence agencies are generally believed to be involved in enforced disappearance; in some cases their involvement had been proved beyond doubt, the report says.

Target killings and crime on the basis of religious and ethnic identity has grown, the report says, adding that the continued persecution of the Hazaras is as ruthless as it is unprecedented.

The report also pointed out that there is a popular feeling that the national media has abandoned Balochistan and has not given the province adequate coverage and journalists in the field feel threatened from the security forces, militants and insurgents.

news@khaleejtimes.com

Khaleej Times 

SECOND EDITORIAL: What a miscarriage of justice

How sad that such a senseless blowback of the Shia-Sunni schism of millennia should fall so violently on Balochistan’s Hazara, a peaceful, harmless community of mosty mid and low-level workers with no history of quarrel with the outside world. And how cruel that even the most blatant, disgusting slaughter of these passive people should fail to so much as register at the centre of power in Islamabad, a fitting response being a far thing.

Considering that this everyday murder of innocent Hazara, often women and children, is mostly duly claimed by extremist organisations created for just such purposes, the government’s continued silence is as revealing as it is disturbing. Could it be that the security machinery is really incapable of reacting to, let alone coping with, what is clearly sectarian cleansing, most prominently in Balochistan? Or is it that the government can still get a handle on the situation but sees it politic to concentrate energies elsewhere for the moment, like judiciary, military and election issues? Or is it that our one-time nest egg, the mulla-cleric novelty of the Soviet jihad, has become so big and powerful a monster that where it cannot directly control the security apparatus, it just bypasses it with impunity?

Granted, preempting such unfortunate instances is difficult at the best of times in places like Quetta, therefore the government’s position must best be revealed by its response. And sadly, where actions should speak louder than words, Islamabad draws a big blank. Why does the interior ministry not move against militant outfits always taking responsibility for this savage monstrosity? Why does Malik Ishaq roam free, addressing large rallies, when his Lashkar e Jhangvi openly prides itself for killing the Shia?

It seems Pakistan is really fast descending into a no-go hell-on-earth marked by extremism, fanaticism and savagery. The burden of responsibility dictates that an authority mute during and after repeated violations of the law must be held complicit with the perpetrators. And the more Islamabad delays necessary action, the more it risks being branded party to the crime. Already the Hazara, once the epitome of the good Pakistani, are embittered to no end, and rightly so; they have buried far more innocent souls than any feelings of loyalty and patriotism they once prided. So much for Jinnah’s secular, progressive Pakistan.

Even worse, a political spectrum obsessed with drone bombings continues to ignore the plight of the Shia, save the MQM, whose strong stance should be mirrored in more parties. Allowing such sectarianism to continue unchecked is the height of infamy, amounting to pouring fuel on an already raging fire. Yet the all-is-well posture dominates in Islamabad, as it is expected to all the way to the election. Meantime tea boys, shoe polishers and taxi drivers comprising the docile Hazara clan continue to pay in blood and tears for the state’s paralysis. What a miscarriage of justice.

Daily Times

Session Judge, his driver and gunman are murdered in Quetta

Mashriq News Paper Encourages Terrorists

جب ہمارے بندے شہید کئے جاتے ہے تو لکها جاتا ہے "نامعلوم افراد" یہ معلوم ہونے کے باوجود کے کون لوگ تهے۔
لیکن غیر ذمیداری کی حد کو دیکهئے کہ پرسو فیصل ٹاؤن میں فائرنگ سے تین افراد زخمی ہوۓ تهے اور کل کو مشرق اخبار میں خبر یہ آئ کی "ہزارہ افراد کی فائرنگ سے " تین افراد زخمی۔