Up to Alphabet

‘Chota ae par zehr da tota ae’

Wednesday, 27 February 2013 00:00
Written by The Spokesman

Published in Exclusives


The Spokesman


MIRZA KHURRAM SHAHZAD

QUETTA: ‘Chota ae par zehr da tota ae’ was the response of a young Pakhtun soldier of the Frontier Corps when one of them joked that his force can’t control a small city like Quetta.

“This small city is calm for most of the time, but when something happens, it is very poisonous,” said the soldier guarding an important crossroad in the Quetta city.

“Then the impact of that event is not small. It is huge and kills dozens of people, so do not call it a small city,” he said.

The capital of Balochistan, with a complex and diverse population of over 2.5 million, is right now in the grip of sectarian violence. Two major attacks in two months have killed around 200 people from the minority Shia Hazara community.

A trip around the city suggests that the security forces are present but their activity is useless because they are not available where and when they are required.

Almost all the crossroads of the city and important avenues have a heavy presence of FC and Police, but they are not seen at the Sariab Road, around Afghan refugees’ localities and the vicinities where the Islamic hardliners take refuge.

The soldiers remain posted at various places in the city for the whole day but as the sun sets, they are nowhere except their permanent posts and the rest of the city is open to all kinds of criminals and terrorists to roam around.

In Sariab Road, which is the hub of hardliner Islamists and Baloch ethnic groups, hardly a soldier is seen there. Wall chalking at the Sariab Road in favor of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and ‘Independent Balochistan’ suggests that the security forces are reluctant to operate there and remove the anti-state slogans.

Just on Saturday, when Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamat (ASWJ) announced a shutter down strike after some LeJ workers were arrested and a few others were killed during an encounter with the forces, the administration handed over the city to them.

The workers of ASWJ and sympathizers of LeJ were openly roaming around the streets on motorcycles armed with weapons and clubs and there was nobody to stop them.

Many of the ASWJ workers were seen forcing traders to close their shops and breaking the glass and gates of the shops which were opened. They also assaulted many of the shopkeepers.

But for the administration, it was part of their efforts to bring peace back to the city. 

 
“As you know they protested yesterday with dead bodies of their workers killed in the encounter and blocked the roads, so we provided them some room to solve the problem,” a senior administration official said when asked why they were reluctant to take action against the law violators.

Asked about the Sariab Road status, he said: “Our forces do operate in the whole city and get deployed wherever they need to. I am not aware of any illegal activity in that specific area or the fact that there is no presence of the forces”.

But not only at Sariab Road, in Akhtarabad, which is very close to Hazara town and where most of the ASWJ workers live among a huge number of Afghan refugees, there is also no presence of the forces. Even the deployment around the Hazara town and Alamdar road was almost zero before the two deadly attacks on January 10 and February 16, in which 92 and 90 people were killed respectively. 

The Hazara community members complain that the LeJ activists get refuge in Akhtarabad after attacking their fellows but the forces don’t take any action.

“We have limited resources and can’t operate everywhere. We can’t go to every doorstep and search for the law violators,” admitted a senior police official who requested anonymity.

“What will happen if we launch a search operation, we will go door to door and will also arrest some of them and confiscate the weapons but some other people will emerge and start operating,” he said, adding that the problem will not be controlled until state policies are not changed.

“Hundreds of seminaries in the country are producing thousands of religious extremists every year. The extremists’ organizations are being funded by the rich businessmen who have a liking for them. Sympathizers are in the society which provides them refuge, so police and other forces can’t overcome everything. We need to change mind of the society,” the police official, who heads special operations, said.

Where paramilitary troops are deployed they also act casually or authoritatively. There is no sign of any professional training which enables a soldier to identify a criminal on the first gaze. At most of the posts soldiers are found talking to each other instead of observing the passersby professionally. And when things are tight and they are asked to monitor everybody closely, they humiliate and disrespect the people. 

Otherwise, everybody gets a go-ahead after replying to some questions like “who are you”, “where are you going” and “from where have you come?”

A senior official of the Frontier Corps (FC) agrees that the soldiers are not well trained but still insists that they are doing well.

“Of course they are part of our society; they get mixed with the people of other forces. If the officials of two other soldiers are relaxing and not doing their job well, how can FC soldiers stay away from these habits?” he asked and added they are still doing great.

“Both Baloch and Islamic militants are getting weakened. They are not that powerful now and that is because of these soldiers. A few incidents to which you are referring are exceptions and exceptions are always there,” he said.

The Spokesman

Pakistan’s Hazaras to take up arms over attacks

AFP |



In this Friday, Feb. 22, 2013 photo, Pakistanis gather at the rubble of a market which was destroyed by a bomb blast on Saturday, February 16, 2013, in Quetta, Pakistan. — Photo by AP

QUETTA: Ismatullah holds an AK-47 and checks vehicles on the road. “Enough is enough. We have no trust in the security forces any more and we’ll protect our community ourselves,” says the teenage Shia student.

Extremist bombers killed nearly 200 people in Pakistan’s southwestern city of Quetta in the two worst bomb attacks to strike Shia Muslims from the minority Hazara community, just weeks apart on January 10 and February 16.

After each attack, thousands of Hazaras, including women and children, camped out in the bitter cold demanding that the army step in to protect them.

The government brokered an end to the protests, but refused to mobilise the troops.

Outlawed extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) claimed responsibility and has threatened to exterminate all Shias. Few believe that dozens of men rounded up after the bomb attacks will ever be brought to justice.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court and rights groups accuse the authorities of failing to protect Hazaras and now young men like 18-year-old Ismatullah are taking up arms to defend themselves and their families.

Ismatullah’s best friend was shot dead last June near Hazara Town. He lost more friends when suicide bombers flattened a snooker hall on January 10 and a massive bomb hidden in a water tanker destroyed a market on February 16.

“I couldn’t control myself when I saw scattered pieces of so many children and women of our community,” said the first year college student.

“Our community is only interested in education and business, but terrorists have forced us to take up whatever arms we have and take to the streets for our own security.”

At the moment they operate as volunteers under the name, Syed-ul-Shohada Scouts, registered as part of the Baluchistan Scouts Association, an affiliate of the worldwide scouting movement.

For years, young men like Ismatullah have volunteered to protect sensitive events, such as religious processions during the holy month of Muharram.

But their chairman says the threat is now so great that they should be paid full time as an auxiliary to government security forces.

“We have around 200 young men who perform security duties on specific occasions, but most of them are students and workers, and can’t work full-time,” said Syed Zaman, chairman of the Hazara Scouts.

“We are trying to make a system to start their salaries for permanent deployment and also coordinate with the security agencies. Hopefully, we will be able to form a regular force… and salaries in a month,” he said.

Scouts president Ghulam Haider said it was a mistake to rely on government security when the first of two suicide bombers struck at the snooker hall in the Alamdar Road neighbourhood.

“It resulted in another bomb blast minutes after the first one and we lost many more people,” Haider told AFP.

“We didn’t want that to happen again, so immediately after the blast on February 16, we armed our youth to man the streets and entry points, which helped to prevent the chances of a second attack,” he claimed.

Hazara Town, where the market was bombed, is very exposed, in the shadow of the Chiltan mountains and near the bypass which links the Afghan border town of Chaman to Pakistan’s financial capital Karachi.

While paramilitary Frontier Corps and police patrol the main approaches, they are not visible inside the neighbourhood.

“Security agencies can’t protect us. They don’t know the area because most of them come from outside Quetta. So we’re planning to set up our own permanent posts inside our areas,” said Haider.

The police, however, have their doubts.

“If we start private policing by arming one particular community, it will set the wrong precedent,” said Fiaz Ahmed Sunbal, head of Quetta police operations.

He claimed police were planning to close entrances to Hazara Town, and would recruit 200 young Hazaras to patrol their own areas.

Haider says closing off roads will isolate the community but welcomed the recruitment of Hazara Scouts as a long-term solution.

Others warn that time is running out.

“If they don’t do anything and something happens again, we will take up guns and go out and kill our opponents. There will be open war,” said 26-year-old shopkeeper Zahid Ali.

DAWN

Terrorized by relentless attacks, ethnic Hazaras to cobble together their own protection force

(Arshad Butt/ Associated Press ) - In this Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013, photo, Pakistani Shiite Muslim children hold candles and banners next to photographs of people, who were killed by a bomb blast in market on Saturday, February 16, 2013, in Quetta, Pakistan. Terrorized by ferocious attacks that have killed nearly 400 ethnic Hazaras in the past 18 months, with almost half of those deaths occurring in the first two months of this year, Shiite leaders blamed the inaction of Pakistan’s security service for the rising violence against them in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province.

By Associated Press, Published: February 27

QUETTA, Pakistan — Inside the ruins of a market demolished by a powerful bomb, four tiny white candles —dwarfed by the scale of the destruction — flickered gently in the freezing rain as dazed Shiite Muslim Hazaras wept for the nearly 90 people killed in the blast.

Condemning the Pakistan government for doing little to protect them, the small ethnic group has vowed to set up their own defense force to deal with Sunni extremists they blame for the bombing and a series of other ferocious attacks that have killed nearly 400 ethnic Hazaras in the past 18 months, nearly half in the first two months of this year.

The bomb earlier this month in the Pakistani city of Quetta ripped a swath of devastation that flattened a three-story building and left the ruins of scores of single-room shops exposed to the rain. Blood-soaked rugs were all that was left of a carpet store.

“The ones who did this — they are not human. They are animals,” said Surha, a young woman who goes by one name, a common tradition here. She spoke as she grieved at the site, more than a week after the bombing.

Shiite leaders blame inaction by Pakistan’s security service for the rising violence against them in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province. They told The Associated Press recently that they are petitioning the provincial administration of Baluchistan to approve a Hazara-led defense force to work with local police..... Continue Reading.... 

Hazara protest in Sydney against massacre of Shia in Quetta, Pakistan

Imran Khan talking to media at Quetta Hazara Community Dharna January 13...

PressConference: Imran Khan on Shia massacre in Quetta (February 18, 2013)