Pakistan shakes up bombed
Balochistan By Syed
Fazl-e-Haider
KARACHI - Pakistan Prime
Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has dismissed the
coalition government of Balochistan and imposed
governor rule in the insurgency-hit southwestern
province, as protests and sit-ins were held
nationwide over sectarian killings in Quetta on
January 10.
At least 118 people were
killed and 150 more injured as a result of three
bomb blasts in Quetta, the capital of southwestern
Balochistan province. After last Thursday's strike
on the Hazara community, a minority Shi'ite sect,
the families of 86 of the victims refused to bury
their bodies and brought calls for the military to
take control of the city. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a
banned Sunni militant outfit, claimed the
responsibility for what is the
deadliest attack on the
Hazara people.
In one of Pakistan's
blackest days, at least 22 people were also killed
and more than 70 wounded when a bomb exploded in a
crowded Sunni mosque in the northwestern city of
Swat.
The carnage in Quetta and the Swat
killings provoked outrage across the country. A
strike was observed on Sunday in the country's
major cities including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad,
Multan, Hyderabad, and in Quetta itself. Shi'ite
leaders called for dismissal of the Balochistan
government, led by chief minister Aslam Raisani,
and the imposition of military rule in Quetta to
protect the city's citizens.
"I ask the
army chief: what have you done with these extra
three years you got [in office]? What did you give
us except more death?" Maulana Amin Shaheedi, a
central leader of the Majlis-i-Wahdat-i-Muslimeen,
told a news conference in Quetta, as cited by
Reuters. "They will not be buried until the army
comes into Quetta."
More than half a
million people of the Hazara Shi'ite community
live in Quetta. Hazara emigrated from Afghanistan
a century ago and settled in Balochistan. Most of
the incidents of Hazara-targeted killings took
place in Mastung, the home district of Raisani,
the chief minister, whose government was removed
on Monday. Mastung is considered the headquarters
of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in the province.
Prime Minister Ashraf announced the
imposition of governor rule in Balochistan on
Sunday as he met families of Quetta blast victims
who sat beside the bodies of their loved ones for
the third night. The government of Raisani was
being dismissed under article 234 of the
constitution, with Governor Nawab Zulfiqar Ali
Magsi taking over as chief executive of
Balochistan on Monday. Governor's rule in
Balochistan has been imposed for two months,
Ashraf said.
Talking to protesters at the
Hazara sit-in, Ashraf expressed hope that the
governor would take all necessary steps to hold
those behind the bombings accountable, adding that
army could be called in any time for the civilian
administration's help.
What is causing
alarm is the state's failure to protect the Hazara
people against Islamist extremists, who appear to
enjoy unrestricted freedom to carry out their
agenda against the Hazara community. Human Rights
Watch has criticized the government for its
persistent failure to protect the minority Shia
community from sectarian attacks by Sunni militant
groups.
"They [Hazaras] live in a state of
siege. Stepping out of the ghetto means risking
death," The Express Tribune reported Human Rights
Watch's Pakistan Director, Ali Dayan Hasan, as
saying. "Everyone has failed them - the security
services, the government, the judiciary. January
10's attacks demonstrated that even staying within
the ghetto is not safe: the assailants will come
to them."
Though Shi'ite Muslims are under
attack from the radical Sunni militant groups
across the country, the violence against Hazaras
who live in Quetta has been unabated. In 2012, 120
of the more than 400 Shi'ite Muslims killed in
Pakistan were from Balochistan, and the majority
of these victims were from the Hazara community.
More than 1,000 Hazara people have been
killed in attacks during the past decade.
Persian-speaking Hazaras are easily identified by
their Turkish appearance, hence in most of the
cases they were identified among bus passengers,
then lined up and shot dead.
The sense of
insecurity among Hazaras in Quetta has become
acute. Last week, Hazaras were targeted in their
locality, Alamdar Road. They feel unsafe even in
their own areas, and are virtually under siege.
Pakistan faces grave security challenges
on two fronts as its armed forces fight a Baloch
insurgency in the country's southwest and a
Taliban-led insurrection in the northwest along
Afghanistan border. The breakdown of law and order
in the nuclear-armed country and failure of the
law enforcement agencies to check the terrorist
activities raises international concerns.
The state's tolerance of extremist groups
is reprehensible raising questions about its
actual policy vis-a-vis banned Jihadi and militant
groups. Violent extremism is actually the outcome
of 'Military-mullah nexus' that spawned a jihadi
mindset mushrooming militant groups of Islamist
extremists in the country till 2001. The people
are still paying the heavy price for violent
extremism that has brutally persecuted the
minority Shia sect and moderate Sunni Muslims.
Before 2001, jihadi groups and extremist
organizations enjoyed patronage from the country's
security establishment. After the 9/11 attacks on
the US in 2001, the country officially banned
these outfits under US pressure. Former president
retired General Pervez Musharraf categorically
declared in 2001 that there would be no space for
any Lashkar (armed force) in the country other
than the Pakistan army.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
has declared Shi'ites as kafirs (infidels) and has
mainly been involved in most of the Hazara
killings across Balochistan over past many years.
If Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is still in full action
stepping up attacks on minority groups, then it is
due either to the utter failure of the state's
intelligence and security agencies to protect its
citizens or the complicity in the targeted
killings of citizens on sectarian lines.
The News, Pakistan's leading daily
newspaper, in its recent editorial said:
As it had to be, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
has claimed responsibility for the Quetta
attacks. Further reports on Friday morning say
that the victims have all been moved to military
hospitals as doctors at the civilian hospitals
have been receiving threats from
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. The bombings appear to have
been coordinated, with one blast luring the
police, the army, and the media and rescue
services to the scene, and a second larger bomb
cutting a swathe through them once they had
arrived. The targets were obviously the Shia
Hazara community and the security
forces.
It added:
Despite having the sixth-largest
army in the world and hundreds of thousands of
police and paramilitary personnel, the state
appears unable to robustly and conclusively
fight back at terrorist groups that operate with
apparent impunity across the country. Banned
organizations flourish everywhere, their
fundraising activities unchecked, their banners
and wall-chalking there for all to see.
Hate speech against minority groups is
heard countrywide. There has been the usual
platitudinous bleating by senior politicians of
all parties, the ritual condemnation of Bloody
Thursday, but there will be precious little by
way of action to counteract the underlying
mindset that allows extremism to prevail. Until
there is a political will to tip the balance in
the other direction, there are going to be more
murderous events such as those in Quetta and
Swat.
Syed
Fazl-e-Haider (www.syedfazlehaider.com) is a
development analyst in Pakistan. He is the author
of many books, including The Economic
Development of Balochistan (2004).
E-mail,sfazlehaider05@yahoo.com
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