Pakistan's under-fire Hazaras vow to make votes count

Agence France-PresseMay 7, 2013 01:15

In the city that has become the epicentre of sectarian bloodshed in Pakistan, Shiite Muslim candidates are braving death threats to make themselves heard in Saturday's election.

Shiites make up around a fifth of Pakistan's 180 million population but they are caught in a rising tide of sectarian hatred, targeted by extremist Sunni Muslim bombers and vilified on the campaign trail.

Quetta, capital of the southwestern province of Baluchistan, has been a focus for much of the violence and two devastating bombings earlier this year killed nearly 200 people from the city's ethnic Hazara Shiite population.

Banned Sunni extremist organisation Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), which has links to Al-Qaeda, claimed the attacks and vowed to strike again.

The authorities stepped up security in some Hazara districts of Quetta but those running for office say the threats to their lives are so great that they are unable to move around freely to canvass for votes.

Ruquiya Hashmi, a doctor and a former soldier, faces a double challenge -- as well as being Hazara she is also the first woman to stand in Quetta for the national assembly.

For the past few days she has had threatening phone calls and letters sent to her offices. She is running for Pakistan Muslim League-Q, an ally of the outgoing government, but she is determined to stand up to the extremists.

"I'm lucky I'm a very brave woman. It's very challenging being a woman, being a Hazara, but God willing I will face the challenges and I will raise my voice," she said.... Continue Reading....

In Quetta, fear still stalks the Hazara

ANITA JOSHUA

The snooker club which was first targeted by terrorists in the January 10 attackon the Hazara Shias of Mariabad is being reconstructed, and the crater that formed on the road outside in the second — more devastating blast — the same day has been filled up. But memories of that afternoon will take much more to fade as the community lives in perpetual fear.

The January 10 attack and the one in mid-February on the other Hazara settlement in the provincial capital — where 90 people were killed in a single blast — have not only made fear a constant companion of the community but also affected their lives in ways they least expected.

The tightening of security in the two settlements has ghettoized the community even more. With no one allowed into the two areas without identification, shopkeepers complained that their businesses were suffering as now they catered for only the Hazara community since people from other neighbourhoods and ethnicities avoid shopping here because of the restrictions.

“The increased security has in a way spelt doom for our little businesses,” Sher Mohammad told a group of visiting foreign journalists. And with many a member of the community wary of stepping outside the localities for fear of being targeted by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), limited liquidity is affecting spending power. Some months ago, the LeJ launched an SMS service in some places of the city, asking people to report to a certain mobile number as soon as they spot a Hazara who are easily recognizable because of their Mongoloid features.

Those working in government offices say their colleagues and seniors understand their predicament and allow them to skip work in case word gets around of a heightened threat on any given day. The provincial government, both Hazaras and non-Hazaras vouch, has been accommodating in this regard. That consideration, however, does not extend to those working in the private sector. With little option but to go out and work, they do so with their hearts in their mouth.

Since the two settlements are old with schools within the area, schooling has not been as much affected as higher education. Attendance of Hazara students tends to be erratic, though they have returned to their colleges; but their education under these circumstances is a concern for the community that attaches great importance to education of both boys and girls.

At the Balochistan University of Information Technology Engineering & Management Sciences (BUITEMS), Hazara students and teachers flagged the ironical situation created by a security arrangement. After a bomb attack on a bus ferrying students from the community killed three students and a teacher last year right outside the university’s main gate, the bus service to the two Hazara settlements was discontinued as a security arrangement.

Consequently, the students now have to wait for the university buses at designated points well outside their colonies, exposing themselves to the risk of being attacked in ones and twos that had become a fairly regular feature last year. Though such attacks have reduced since the two big bombings this year, fear has taken permanent residence in their lives.

According to Abdul Khaliq Hazara, chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party (HDP), many members of his community have fled the country. He puts the number at one lakh, but there is no data to substantiate this claim. “We want to leave, but that is not an easy option. Neither is moving to another city in Pakistan as Shias are targeted everywhere and we are easily recognizable,” explained Asadullah Hazara on Alamdar Road, which made it to international headlines when members of the community picketed the thoroughfare in sub-zero temperatures with the bodies of their dead in January.

In the case of the Hazara political leadership, the threat has also affected their election campaign. The HDP leader — who is contesting the general election from Quetta — rued that he was unable to campaign outside the Hazara areas because of the threat. Though Quetta has always been a multi-ethnic city with all communities living in harmony, the growing radicalisation of society has made Hazaras unsure of their Baloch and Pashtoon neighbours, particularly the former since the police claim that there is a linkage between the sectarian Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and some of the Baloch insurgent groups.

The community feels so traumatised now by living on the edge day in and day out that one resident of Mariabad — who did not want to be identified — said: “The situation is such that now even if the terrorists do not want to attack, we are stricken with fear.”

Almost all aspects of their day-to-day lives have been affected, but leaving is not an option for Quetta’s Hazara since Shias are targeted everywhere in Pakistan

The Hindu 

Pakistan's minority Hazaras living in fear

Last Updated: Sunday, May 05, 2013, 17:18

Quetta: When a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle rigged with 300-kg of explosives in a Hazara Shia neighbourhood in this southwestern Pakistani city in January, Sher Mohammed and his friends spent the next few hours collecting body parts.

"We found body parts on the roads, on the roofs of buildings. We collected three bags of body parts, each bag weighing 20-kg. About 12 people were simply blown to pieces," Mohammed said at Alamdar Road, which was targeted by two suicide bombers on that cold winter's night.

On January 10, one bomber entered a snooker club in the basement of a commercial building and blew himself up.

As policemen, rescue teams and local residents converged on the narrow street outside the club, another bomber detonated an explosives-laden ambulance about 10 minutes later.

The two bombings, claimed by the banned Lashkar-e-Jhanvi, killed 96 people and injured dozens more.

Most of the dead were Hazara Shias, including 10 policemen from the minority community that has been repeatedly targeted by the al-Qaeda-linked LeJ.

Deputy Inspector General of Police (Operations) Fayyaz Ahmed said the ambulance was packed with 300 kg of home-made explosives.

"The damage was on a scale we had not expected," he said. Nearly four months after the bombings, the building with the snooker club has been repaired and is about to reopen for business.

A crater in the street has been filled up, a screen has been put up to cover the damage caused by the second blast and few signs remain of the attacks.

But Sher Mohammed, 45, says he still feels uneasy when he remembers the devastation caused by the suicide bombers.

"There were bodies with no heads, no eyes, no limbs. Some had organs missing. Three men who were volunteers along with me for an ambulance service run by the Noor Welfare Society were killed. Everyone I know lost a relative or a friend," said Mohammed, who owns a butcher's shop.

All along Alamdar Road, there are posters with photographs of men who died in the January 10 bombings.

As a group of foreign journalists visited the neighbourhood this afternoon, a man came up to them and held up a board with the picture of a relative killed in the attack.

With authorities putting in place strict security arrangements for the Hazara Shias, who stand out due to their distinctive features, members of the community say business and normal life has been affected by threats from terrorists as well as the presence of security forces.



"We know the security personnel are here for our protection but they don't allow outsiders to enter the area. I have lost customers who were from other communities, like Punjabis and Pashtuns. We rarely go out of Mariabad, where most of us live," said Mohammed.


Asadullah, a 20-year-old Hazara youth who owns a small shop, said he would prefer to go away from Quetta to put behind him the constant threat of attacks. "If I had the money, I would leave. I would go anywhere," he said.

Zee News 

Lawless State or State of Lawlessness; Banned Terrorist Organization ASWJ Makes an Alliance with PML-N in Quetta

 Banned Terrorist Organization ASWJ/LeJ openly campaigns for elections in Quetta City

BBC; 'Hell on Earth': Inside Quetta's Hazara community

Ruqsana Bibi at the cemetary in Quetta where her sons are buried

By Mobeen Azhar

BBC World Service

30 April 2013 Last updated at 20:00 ET

For years Quetta in Pakistan has rarely been visited by foreign media organisations, as it is considered too dangerous. Now a World Service investigation has uncovered the reality of life for the city's persecuted Hazara Shia community in what some describe as "hell on earth".

On 10 January 2013, a suicide bomber walked into a packed snooker hall in Quetta and detonated an explosive device, marking the beginning of what would become the bloodiest day in Pakistan's recent history.

Eight people died in the initial blast and the area soon became flooded with people trying to help. A second bomb planted on an ambulance was then detonated.

Listen to the full report on Assignment on the BBC World Service on Thursday May 2 and on BBC Radio 4's Crossing Continents on the same day at 11:00am.

The attacks killed more than 120 people, most of them from the Hazara Shia community, in a campaign strategically planned to inflict maximum carnage.

Quetta's Hazara community is on the front line of Pakistan's battle with violent extremism.

Ruqsana Bibi lost three of her four sons on that day. The walls of her modest home are filled with family pictures. She sits on the floor holding three frames. Each contains a picture of one of the children she lost.

"I ran to the mosque barefoot and I saw the bodies of my three sons. I kissed their faces. I carried them to the cemetery myself. The eldest was Khadim Husain. I said to him: 'You must take care of your brothers in the grave.' I don't know what happened to me then. People took me home."

Mrs Bibi says her grandsons, aged nine and five, are afraid that they too will be "martyred" one day.

"They say: 'Who are these people killing us?' Who are these people that are stirring up trouble between Sunnis and Shias? It didn't used to be like this."

Mrs Bibi's family, like almost all of the victims of the Quetta attacks, are Hazara.

Hazaras are ethnically Mongolian, with oriental features and light skin, different from much of Pakistan's population... Continue Reading...

Hazaras, Hatred and Pakistan

Duration: 28 minutesFirst broadcast: Thursday 02 May 2013

Mobeen Azhar travels to the Pakistani city of Quetta to investigate how it has become the scene of violent and indiscriminate attacks by Sunni militants against the local ethnic Hazara community. It's a city which has become effectively a no-go area for foreign journalists due to the persistent and intensifying violence. Mobeen tells the story of a single day in January of this year when over 100 people lost their lives in twin bombings in Quetta. Claiming responsibility was the Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Mobeen retraces the story of the bombings, and examines the growing security concerns in a district dominated by the Shia Hazara community.

He speaks to Fayyaz Mohammed, a candidate in the forthcoming elections who has links to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and talks with Paul Bhatti, who until recently was the Pakistani Minister of National Harmony. Bhatti blames the government's inability to enforce "effective policy" on Pakistan's long history of military dictatorship. Azhar meets blast survivors and the families of victims, and finds out how the security situation is causing many young Hazaras to leave Quetta to seek a better life elsewhere - despite the dangers of putting their lives in the hands of people smugglers.

BBC Radio 4