Sunday, December 30, 2012
Pakistan militants kill 41 in mass execution, attack on Shiites
BY JIBRAN AHMAD, DECEMBER 30 2012
Emergency personnel remove burnt human remains from the scene on a stretcher, after a car bomb targeting buses carrying Shia Muslim pilgrims, exploded in Quetta on Sunday. Picture: REUTERS
PESHWAR — Pakistani militants, who have escalated attacks in recent weeks, killed at least 41 people in two separate incidents, officials said on Sunday, challenging assertions that military offensives have broken the back of hardline Islamist groups.
The US has long pressured nuclear-armed ally Pakistan to crack down harder on both homegrown militants groups such as the Taliban and others which are based on its soil and attack Western forces in Afghanistan.
In the north, 21 men working for a government-backed paramilitary force were executed overnight after they were kidnapped last week, a provincial official said.
Twenty Shiite pilgrims died and 24 were wounded, meanwhile, when a car bomb targeted their bus convoy as it headed toward the Iranian border in the southwest, a doctor said.
New York-based Human Rights Watch has noted more than 320 Shias killed this year in Pakistan and said attacks were on the rise. It said the government’s failure to catch or prosecute attackers suggested it was "indifferent" to the killings.
Pakistan, seen as critical to US efforts to stabilise the region before Nato forces withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, denies allegations that it supports militant groups like the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network.
Afghan officials say Pakistan seems more genuine than ever about promoting peace in Afghanistan.
At home, it faces a variety of highly lethal militant groups that carry out suicide bombings, attack police and military facilities and launch sectarian attacks like the one on the bus in the southwest.
Witnesses said a blast targeted their three buses as they were overtaking a car about 60km west of Quetta, capital of sparsely populated Baluchistan province.
"The bus next to us caught on fire immediately," said pilgrim Hussein Ali, 60. "We tried to save our companions, but were driven back by the intensity of the heat." Twenty people had been killed and 24 wounded, said an official at Mastung district hospital.
Pakistan’s Taliban have carried out a series of recent bold attacks, as military officials point to what they say is a power struggle in the group’s leadership revolving around whether it should ease attacks on the Pakistani state and join groups fighting US-led forces in Afghanistan.
The Taliban denies a rift exists among its leaders.
In the attack in the northwest, officials said they had found the bodies of 21 men kidnapped from their checkpoints outside the provincial capital of Peshawar on Thursday. The men were executed one by one.
"They were tied up and blindfolded," Naveed Anwar, a senior administration official, said by telephone.
"They were lined up and shot in the head," said Habibullah Arif, another local official, also by telephone.
One man was shot and seriously wounded but survived, the officials said. He was in critical condition and being treated at a local hospital. Another had escaped before the shootings.
Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan claimed responsibility for the attacks.
"We killed all the kidnapped men after a council of senior clerics gave a verdict for their execution. We didn’t make any demand for their release because we don’t spare any prisoners who are caught during fighting," he said.
The powerful military has clawed back territory from the Taliban, but the kidnap and executions underline the insurgents’ ability to mount high-profile, deadly attacks in major cities.
This month, suicide bombers attacked Peshawar’s airport on Dec 15 and a bomb killed a senior Pashtun nationalist politician and eight other people at a rally on Dec 22.
Reuters
Emergency personnel remove burnt human remains from the scene on a stretcher, after a car bomb targeting buses carrying Shia Muslim pilgrims, exploded in Quetta on Sunday. Picture: REUTERS
PESHWAR — Pakistani militants, who have escalated attacks in recent weeks, killed at least 41 people in two separate incidents, officials said on Sunday, challenging assertions that military offensives have broken the back of hardline Islamist groups.
The US has long pressured nuclear-armed ally Pakistan to crack down harder on both homegrown militants groups such as the Taliban and others which are based on its soil and attack Western forces in Afghanistan.
In the north, 21 men working for a government-backed paramilitary force were executed overnight after they were kidnapped last week, a provincial official said.
Twenty Shiite pilgrims died and 24 were wounded, meanwhile, when a car bomb targeted their bus convoy as it headed toward the Iranian border in the southwest, a doctor said.
New York-based Human Rights Watch has noted more than 320 Shias killed this year in Pakistan and said attacks were on the rise. It said the government’s failure to catch or prosecute attackers suggested it was "indifferent" to the killings.
Pakistan, seen as critical to US efforts to stabilise the region before Nato forces withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, denies allegations that it supports militant groups like the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network.
Afghan officials say Pakistan seems more genuine than ever about promoting peace in Afghanistan.
At home, it faces a variety of highly lethal militant groups that carry out suicide bombings, attack police and military facilities and launch sectarian attacks like the one on the bus in the southwest.
Witnesses said a blast targeted their three buses as they were overtaking a car about 60km west of Quetta, capital of sparsely populated Baluchistan province.
"The bus next to us caught on fire immediately," said pilgrim Hussein Ali, 60. "We tried to save our companions, but were driven back by the intensity of the heat." Twenty people had been killed and 24 wounded, said an official at Mastung district hospital.
Pakistan’s Taliban have carried out a series of recent bold attacks, as military officials point to what they say is a power struggle in the group’s leadership revolving around whether it should ease attacks on the Pakistani state and join groups fighting US-led forces in Afghanistan.
The Taliban denies a rift exists among its leaders.
In the attack in the northwest, officials said they had found the bodies of 21 men kidnapped from their checkpoints outside the provincial capital of Peshawar on Thursday. The men were executed one by one.
"They were tied up and blindfolded," Naveed Anwar, a senior administration official, said by telephone.
"They were lined up and shot in the head," said Habibullah Arif, another local official, also by telephone.
One man was shot and seriously wounded but survived, the officials said. He was in critical condition and being treated at a local hospital. Another had escaped before the shootings.
Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan claimed responsibility for the attacks.
"We killed all the kidnapped men after a council of senior clerics gave a verdict for their execution. We didn’t make any demand for their release because we don’t spare any prisoners who are caught during fighting," he said.
The powerful military has clawed back territory from the Taliban, but the kidnap and executions underline the insurgents’ ability to mount high-profile, deadly attacks in major cities.
This month, suicide bombers attacked Peshawar’s airport on Dec 15 and a bomb killed a senior Pashtun nationalist politician and eight other people at a rally on Dec 22.
Reuters
کچھ نہیں ہوگا
Saturday 29 December 2012
ہزارہ کا ایک نوجوان اپنے رشتے دار کی ہلاکت پر رورہا ہے — رایئٹرز فوٹو
علمدار روڈ سے پورا شہر پار کرنے کے بعد ہم ہزارہ ٹاؤن پہنچے۔ یہ قصبہ باقی ماندہ شہر سے جیسے کٹا ہوا ہے۔ راستے میں ایک پل، ایک لمبی سڑک اور بے تحاشا خشمگین نگاہیں تھیں۔ کوئٹہ میں ہزارہ قوم دو جگہ آ باد ہے۔ ایک آبادی چھاؤنی کے پاس ہے اور دوسری شہر کے پار۔ ہزارہ ٹاؤن ہر حال سے پسماندگی کی ایک داستان ہے۔ اکھڑی ہوئی سڑکیں، ٹوٹے پھوٹے گھر، ٹاٹ کے پردے اور اندر مسافر خانوں جیسی زندگی، جسے یہ لوگ چند کپڑوں اور چند برتنوں کے ساتھ گزار رہے ہیں۔
ہم ہزارہ کے بارے میں کھوجتے کھوجتے فریدون تک پہنچے تھے۔ روز زندگی کی بازی کھیلنے اور تقریبا ہر روز ہی ہار جانے والے یہ لوگ بقا کی بڑی مستقل مزاج خواہش رکھتے ہیں۔ جس طرح لاکھ کوشش کے باوجود پکی اینٹوں کے بیچ کوئی نہ کوئی بوٹی سر اٹھا ہی لیتی ہے، بالکل ویسے ہی بم دھماکوں،اغوا اور قتل و غارت گری کے باوجود یہ لوگ خوشی کا سامان کر ہی لیتے ہیں۔ کسی نے بتایا کہ یہ بچہ موسیقی کی خاصی شدھ بدھ رکھتا ہے اور بہت عمدہ کی بورڈ بجاتا ہے۔
ڈھونڈھتے ڈھونڈھتے ننھے فنکار کے گھر پہنچے تو پتہ چلا کہ ہمارے مقدر میں صرف اس کا فن نہیں بلکہ ان لوگوں کی مہمان نوازی بھی ہو گی۔ یہ شاید یہاں کا آخری گھر تھا اور گھر کیا تھا، غربت کی ایک تصویر تھی۔ صاف ستھرا آنگن، کونے میں چند بالٹیاں، جن میں شاید پانی تک کہیں سے لایا گیا تھا اور ایک تیتر کا پنجرہ۔ کچی اینٹوں کے فرش سے دائیں مڑیں تو مہمان خانہ تھا۔
کچھ ہی دیر میں چھوٹا سا کمرہ دس کے قریب لوگوں سے بھر گیا۔ کھانا چننے کا منظر بالکل قصے کہانیوں ایسا تھا۔ پہلے چاندنی بچھی، پھر برتن چنے گئے۔ اس کے بعد ایک برتن میں گرم پانی اور ایک چلمچی میں ہاتھ دھلوائے گئے۔ پہلی بار اندازہ ہوا کہ ایرانی تہذیب میں نفاست کا کیا لطف ہے۔ کھانے کے بعد قہوے کا دور چلا اور اس دوران فریدون نے اپنا کی بورڈ لگا لیا۔
کمرے میں شوخ پردوں کے علاوہ، اس کے بھائی کی تصویر بھی لگی تھی۔ ایک طرف فارسی میں صبر کی تاکید تھی اور ایک دیوار پہ افغانستان کا مقتول صدر نجیب مسکرا رہا تھا۔ یہ خاندان اس وقت افغانستان سے اٹھ آیا جب طالبان نے ان پہ زندگی تنگ کر دی۔ جو بال تک نہیں کاٹنے دیتے وہ بھلا خوش رہنے کی اجازت کیونکر دیتے۔ سو سب مال اسباب بیچ کر یہ لوگ پاکستان آ گئے اور کوئٹہ میں از سر نو زندگی کا آغاز کیا۔ فریدون کے باپ نے ایک سی ڈی اور کیسٹ کی دوکان کھول لی۔ کمرے میں پھیلی سرخوشی اس بات کی غماز تھی کہ یہاں رہنے والوں نے اچھا وقت دیکھا ہے۔
بچے نے گانا شروع کیا تو وقت واقعی رک گیا۔ اس کی مشتاق انگلیاں سر کا سفر طے کر رہی تھیں اور سننے والے دم بخود تھے۔ کومل تیور کی تانیں اور فارسی کے الفاظ اپنا جادو جگا رہے تھے اور اپنی بچی کھچی متاع جاں لپیٹنے کے بارے میں فریدوں گا رہا تھا
عزیزم قدر ے یک دیگر می داند
اجل سنگ است و آدم مثل شیشہ است ۔۔۔۔۔ جدائی مستقل غم است
دوستو ایک دوسرے کی قدر کرو،
موت ایک پتھر ہے اور آدمی بس ایک شیشے کی مانند ہے، جدائی مستقل غم ہے
ہم نے ساری یادیں اپنے کیمرے میں قید کیں اور واپس آ گئے۔ زندگی چونکہ ہر دم اپنی مصروفیات بکھیرتی رہتی ہے سو فریدون بھی آہستہ آہستہ ہمارے ذہنوں سے محو ہو گیا۔ کچھ دن تک وہ آخری منظر ہمارے زہنوں میں رہا جس میں دروازے سے نکلتے وقت اس کے چچا کے منت زدہ الفاظ سنائی دئیے۔ صاحب ۔وہ فریدون کے بابا کی دکان بہت دنوں سے بند ہے۔ ان لوگوں نے دھمکی دیا ہے کہ دوکان کھولا تو جان سے مار دیں گے۔ آپ دیکھو نا کہیں کوئی شو مل جائے۔۔ فریدون کو پڑھنے کا بہت شوق ہے صاحب۔
جس دن کوئٹہ میں پہلی بار برف گری اس رات اس کے چچا کا فون آیا اور انہوں نے بتایا کہ صحابہ کے سپاہیوں نے فریدون پے حملہ کیا ہے۔ ہو سکتا ہے وہ ایرانیوں سے قادسیہ کی جنگ کا بدلہ لے رہے ہوں مگر یہ لوگ تو حضرت علی کی ایک چٹھی پہ مسلمان ہو گئے تھے، عین ممکن ہے کہ حملہ آور جھنگ کے کسی لشکر کے لوگ ہوں جو اسلام کی خاطر فریدون کو مارنے آئے تھے اور جنہیں جھنگ سے کوئٹہ کے اس سات سو اکسٹھ کلومیٹر لمبے راستے میں کوئی غیر شرعی چیز نظر نہیں آئی۔
جب تک ہم اس کے گھر پہنچے، فریدون کی آنکھ سوج کے ایک طرف ڈھلک چکی تھی۔ ساری رات باہر برف گرتی رہی اور اندر فریدون کی ماں اس کی آنکھ پہ پٹیاں کرتی رہی۔ اگلے دن میں نے فریدون کے چچا کو فون کیا تو اس کے موبائل پہ مجھے پنجابی کی نعت سنائی دی۔ مجھے مٹھی، تھرپارکر میں ملنے والا انیل کمار یاد آ گیا جو ہندو ہونے کے با وجود ہر جملے میں دو بار الحمدللہ کہتا اور اپنی کالونی کے خاکروب کی آوازیں بھی پڑیں. جس نے بچوں کے نام اسلم اور اکرم رکھ چھوڑے تھے۔
فریدون کے بارے میں لکھنے سے پہلے میں نے بہت سوچا۔۔ کیا اس طرح اس کی جان خطرے میں تو نہیں پڑ جائے گی۔ کیا ملالہ کی طرح فریدون بھی ایجنٹ تو نہیں ٹھیرے گا یا جو تھوڑی بہت زندگی کی رمق فریدون کے گھر میں باقی ہے وہ کیا وہ رہ پائے گی۔ مگر خاموش لوگوں کے اس ہجوم میں مجھے اس کی پر عزم آ واز سنائی دی۔ اپنی ٹوٹی پھوٹی فارسی نما اردو میں فریدون بولا صاحب لکھو، کچھ نہیں ہوگا۔
مصنف وفاقی ملازم ہیں۔Saturday, December 29, 2012
Bomb attack on pilgrim buses kills 20, injures several in Mastung
By Web Desk
Published: December 30, 2012
Witnesses claim it was a suicide blast.
MASTUNG: At least 20 people were killed while several others were injured in a blast near three buses carrying pilgrims in Mastung, Express News reported on Sunday.
Witnesses claim it was a suicide blast.
Three pilgrims’ buses were en route to Quetta from Taftan when the explosion took place, destroying one bus and damaging the other.
Witnesses said that a car slammed into the bus in the middle, which was carrying 45 passengers, blowing it up and destroying it.
The injured were shifted to hospitals in Mastung and Quetta.
Levies personnel cordoned off the area.
A day earlier, six people were killed while at least 50 people, including three women and two children were injured when a bus blew up near Cantonment Railway Station in Karachi.
Earlier this year, a blast in the Hazarganji area of Quetta targeted a bus carrying pilgrims from Taftan to the provincial capital, killing 14 people and injuring 30.
Note: This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly.
Published: December 30, 2012
Witnesses claim it was a suicide blast.
MASTUNG: At least 20 people were killed while several others were injured in a blast near three buses carrying pilgrims in Mastung, Express News reported on Sunday.
Witnesses claim it was a suicide blast.
Three pilgrims’ buses were en route to Quetta from Taftan when the explosion took place, destroying one bus and damaging the other.
Witnesses said that a car slammed into the bus in the middle, which was carrying 45 passengers, blowing it up and destroying it.
The injured were shifted to hospitals in Mastung and Quetta.
Levies personnel cordoned off the area.
A day earlier, six people were killed while at least 50 people, including three women and two children were injured when a bus blew up near Cantonment Railway Station in Karachi.
Earlier this year, a blast in the Hazarganji area of Quetta targeted a bus carrying pilgrims from Taftan to the provincial capital, killing 14 people and injuring 30.
Note: This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly.
مستونگ: زائرین کی بسوں پر حملہ، دس ہلاک
اتوار 30 دسمبر 2012,
یہ واقعہ مستونگ کے علاقے درینگڑھ میں پیش آیا۔ مستونگ کوئٹہ سے پینتیس کلومیٹر دور ہے (فائل فوٹو)
پاکستان کے صوبہ بلوچستان کے علاقے مستونگ میں شیعہ مسلک سے تعلق رکھنے والے زائرین کی بسوں کو نشانہ بنایا گیا ہے جس کے نتیجے میں کم از کم دس افراد ہلاک ہوئے ہیں۔
ابتدائی اطلاعات کے مطابق ان بسوں کو بم دھماکے سے نشانہ بنایا گیا۔ اس واقعے میں تین افراد ہلاک اور متعدد زخمی ہوئے ہیں۔
یہ واقعہ مستونگ کے علاقے درینگڑھ میں پیش آیا۔ مستونگ کوئٹہ سے پینتیس کلومیٹر دور ہے۔
یہ تین بسیں تفتان سے کوئٹہ آ رہی تھیں جب ان کو نشانہ بنایا گیا۔
سرکاری ٹی وی چینل پی ٹی وی کے مطابق اس حملے میں کم از کم دس افراد ہلاک ہوئے ہیں۔
ایک عینی شاہد وزیر خان نے بی بی سی کو بتایا کہ ایک بس مکمل طور پر جل گئی ہے۔ تاہم ان کا کہنا تھا کہ اس وقت یہ معلوم نہیں کہ اس بس میں کتنے لوگ سوار تھے۔
عینی شاہد نے کہا کہ ایسا لگتا ہے کہ کار بم حملہ کیا گیا ہے کیونکہ ایک چھوٹی گاڑی کا انجن بھی جائے حادثہ پر پڑا ہوا ہے۔
یاد رہے کہ کوئٹہ میں زائرین کی بسوں کو کئی بار نشانہ بنایا جا چکا ہے۔ اور یہ حملے زیادہ تر مستونگ ہی کے علاقے میں
کیے جاتے ہیں۔
Bomb targeting Shiites kills 4 in Pakistan
BY RIAZ KHAN
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
QUETTA, Pakistan -- A government official says a bomb has struck a pair of buses carrying Shiite Muslim pilgrims in southwest Pakistan, killing four people.
Zubair Ahmed said the attack Sunday in Baluchistan province's Mastung district wounded another 15 people, including three women. The bomb was strapped to a motorcycle and detonated by remote control. One bus was almost completely destroyed. The other was damaged.
Ahmed said the buses were coming from neighboring Iran, a majority Shiite country and popular destination for religious pilgrims.
Pakistan has experienced a spike in killings over the last year by radical Sunni Muslims targeting Shiites who they consider heretics. Many attacks have occurred in Baluchistan, believed to be a hiding place for senior Afghan Taliban commanders and also the site of a decades-long insurgency by nationalists.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
QUETTA, Pakistan -- A government official says a bomb has struck a pair of buses carrying Shiite Muslim pilgrims in southwest Pakistan, killing four people.
Zubair Ahmed said the attack Sunday in Baluchistan province's Mastung district wounded another 15 people, including three women. The bomb was strapped to a motorcycle and detonated by remote control. One bus was almost completely destroyed. The other was damaged.
Ahmed said the buses were coming from neighboring Iran, a majority Shiite country and popular destination for religious pilgrims.
Pakistan has experienced a spike in killings over the last year by radical Sunni Muslims targeting Shiites who they consider heretics. Many attacks have occurred in Baluchistan, believed to be a hiding place for senior Afghan Taliban commanders and also the site of a decades-long insurgency by nationalists.
COMMENT : Eradicating ‘impurities’: focus on the Hazaras — Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed
According to Human Rights Watch, more than 800 Hazaras have been killed since 2001, but the local sources show that almost 1,000 have died with 3,000 suffering injuries
The hallmark of a fascist ideology is its rejection of any deviation from whatever is considered pure and unadulterated. Pakistan’s special variety of fascism is associated with the Taliban mentality. Another man has been set ablaze, this time in Sindh, by a mob gone berserk because he allegedly burnt a copy of the Quran. Even the Nazis could learn a skill or two how to extend the ambit of a killing spree to polio vaccination female workers on grounds that they were injecting poison that would transform infants into agents of US imperialism. A Swedish social worker, Sister Birgitta Alemby, 72, who had been for 39 years working with the education of orphaned girls in my native Lahore was shot in the chest by the Taliban on December 3 and expired on December 13. For her assailants she was a ‘legitimate target’ because she was a Christian, a foreigner, and was helping underprivileged females with education.
Sister Alemby’s death is part of ongoing vicious attacks on Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis, each a tiny minority. The Munir Report found evidence that implicated, besides sectarian groups, even key Punjab leaders of the Muslim League in the violent anti-Ahmadiyya riots of 1953. In 1945-46, the same Muslim League had demonised and dehumanised Hindus and Sikhs; then they turned their guns on Ahmadis. Sectarian literature was available in abundance on both Ahmadi and mainstream Muslim sides against one another and only needed an occasion to be ignited. It was revived later when the Ahmadis were declared as non-Muslims in 1974. Thus, the state did away with any pretence to neutrality on matters of belief and under General Ziaul Haq the blasphemy law and other discriminatory edicts established a full-fledged basis for discrimination.
Despite the growth of such tendencies in the constitutional and legal systems of Pakistan, the Shias continued to be regarded as Muslims, and legally that situation has not changed even now, but from the 1990 onwards Shia-Sunni terrorism wrecked many lives. On both sides, highly inflammatory literature existed and all that was needed was to invoke it to justify violence and terrorism against the enemy group. The Sunnis obviously had the upper hand and allegations exist that they also enjoy the patronage of some agencies.
However, for some time now violence against Shias has concentrated on the most vulnerable group: the hardworking, educated, and very cultured Hazara minority. On December 1, 2012, the Hazara community in Sweden organised a meeting in Gothenburg (Göteborg in Swedish), Sweden’s second largest city, to draw attention to the genocide going on against them in Pakistan. Because of their distinctly Mongoloid ethnicity, the Hazaras are easily identifiable. Approximately one million live in Pakistan, of which around 0.5 million live in two distinct enclaves: Mehrabad (eastern Quetta adjacent to Quetta Cantonment) and Hazara Town (western Quetta adjacent to the international highway, which is the NATO supply route). The rest also are found in Hyderabad, Sindh, Karachi, Peshawar and Parachinar.
The journey from Stockholm to Gothenburg took several hours as I travelled by car with some Hazaras. Our conversation was an eye-opener. Later, during the meeting attended by hundreds of Hazaras and some Swedish sympathizers, more facts emerged. Originally belonging to Afghanistan, they were forcibly expelled in the 19th century by Amir Abdur Rahman from Afghanistan. Contrary to popular belief, the fact that they are Shias did not mean that they were welcomed in the neighbouring Iran; on the contrary they were treated as a pariah people by the Aryan-minded Persians who treated them as an inferior race.
Hazara killing began in 1999. The former education minister, Sardar Nisar Ali Hazara, was fired upon outside the Balochistan Assembly building. He survived but his guards died. The onslaught escalated in 2001 but dramatically increased in 2008 after the Balochistan Lashkar-e-Jhangvi leader Usman Saifullah Kurd and Shafiq-ur-Rahman, convicted for killing 53 people, escaped from a high security jail in Quetta Cantonment.
According to Human Rights Watch, more than 800 Hazaras have been killed since 2001, but the local sources show that almost 1,000 have died with 3,000 suffering injuries. More than 350 people have died since 2010 alone. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has reported that 300 Hazaras drowned in the Pacific Ocean while trying to escape to Australia by boat. Thousands have headed elsewhere in Europe and North America in search of safe havens.
Not surprisingly, there are economic reasons too for targeting the Hazaras. They were getting economically strong due to remittances flowing into Quetta from the Hazara diaspora. The Hazaras are not only better educated as an ethnic group than others in Balochistan, they have been successful in setting up businesses and enterprises. Liquidation attacks from 2010 to 2012 indicate that most of the targets were Hazara traders and businessmen. A fact-finding report about Balochistan by the HRCP released on August 30, 2012 found that Hazaras have been already uprooted from Machh, Loralai and Zhob cities of Balochistan. The report notes, “It seems a campaign has been launched to terrorise the Hazara community so that they leave Quetta by selling their businesses and property at throwaway prices. Pamphlets have been left at their homes telling them to sell their houses and leave.” I do not want to emphasise too much that in 1947 too religious differences and the better economic position of the Hindus and Sikhs were factors that rendered them a target.
However, at that time there was a breakdown of law and order because the colonial state disappeared and the two administrations let ethnic cleansing take place before things returned to ‘normal’. Although Balochistan is disturbed, the authorities can and must strive to bring to an end the persecution of the Hazaras.
The writer has a PhD from Stockholm University. He is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University. He is also Honorary Senior Fellow of the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. His latest publication is The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed: Unravelling the 1947 Tragedy through Secret British Reports and First-Person Accounts (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2012; New Delhi: Rupa Books, 2011). He can be reached at billumian@gmail.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)