Massacre of Hazaras

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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I condemn the killing of Hazaras in Balochistan, amongst some of the pro Pakistan elements in Balochistan and maybe thats why being selectively targeted. No security or support being provided to them by the government as yet, the alleged killers are roaming freely. I appreciate the shias for not responding otherwise this can easily convert into a sectarian conflict. Shias are systematically being killed in Kurram, Gilgit and Quetta. The sunnis should openly come out in the support of shias and condemn this killing and use what ever resources to have this senseless fasad ended.

Two reasons for the persecution of Hazaras could be ethnic plus sect.

Community under assault: Six Hazaras killed in Quetta sectarian attack – The Express Tribune

**In another targeted attack on the Shia community, six ethnic Hazaras were shot dead by gunmen in Quetta on Monday – a day which also saw the killing of four people in violence elsewhere in the restive Balochistan province.

**

Police said some Hazara community members were sitting at a shop on Prince Road when gunmen on two motorbikes opened fire on them, killing six people on the spot and injuring two others. The attackers managed to escape soon after.

“All the victims belong to the Hazara community. It appears to be a sectarian attack,” Qazi Wahid, the DIG Operations, told The Express Tribune.

Police and security forces cordoned off the area, while the casualties were shifted to Sandeman Hospital.

The sextuple murder whipped up tension in the neighbourhood as people from the Shia community took to the streets to protest against the government and law enforcers.

Protesters blocked Jinnah Road and forced shopkeepers to pull down shutters. Some weapon-wielding protesters harassed doctors and journalists near the hospital.

A reporter of *Express News *was injured during the chaos, while a passerby was hit by a stray bullet.

Four killed in separate incidents
In another incident, four people, including two settlers from Punjab, were shot dead in Turbat and Jaffarabad districts.

Police said armed men on a motorbike opened fire on two people standing at a bus stop in the Mand area of Turbat. The murderers managed to escape.

Police said it could be a case of targeted killing as the victims belonged to Lahore and Sargodha and were waiting for a Karachi-bound bus when targeted. The bodies were sent to their native towns after legal formalities.

Separately, two people were killed in an armed clash between two groups in Usta Muhammad town of Jaffarabad district. The clash occurred over the chopping of trees.

Two bodies found
Two bodies were found in Kalat district, about 145 kilometres away from Quetta.

Some passersby spotted the bodies dumped in a desolate place and informed the Levies force. The victims were taken to a nearby state-run hospital. “The bodies had multiple bullet wounds,” a source added.

Identities of the victims could not be ascertained by the time this report was filed.

Meanwhile, a human rights group, Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VFBM), staged a rally outside the Quetta Press Club to condemn the dumping of bullet-riddled bodies and non-recovery of missing persons.

Sister of Zakir Majid, a missing Baloch student, said she has been on strike for the past several months for the recovery of her brother. “I went to Karachi and Islamabad to protest, but my brother is yet to be recovered.”

“All I want is justice from the Supreme Court and other human rights organisations,” said Doctor Din Muhammad Baloch’s daughter.

They alleged that all Baloch missing persons are in illegal official custody and must be produced before the court if they are involved in any crime.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10[SUP]th[/SUP], 2012.

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re: Massacre of Hazaras

A couple of years ago when taleban were fighting for control of Afghanistan, the massacre of Hazaras was carried out in Northern Afghanistan. At that time something like this seemed to be improbable in Pakistan, now there’s nothing of this sort in Afghanistan and we have taken over.

Here’s a report of the Hazara massacre by the Afghan taleban.

UN confirms Taliban massacre of ethnic minority

*Taliban killed 4,000 in ethnic cleansing drive
**
By Ahmed Rashid in Islamabad

Electronic Telegraph**, September 10,1998, Issue 1203

*BETWEEN 4,000 and 6,000 Afghan Hazaras - three times more than recent Amnesty International estimates - were massacred by the Taliban when they captured areas of northern Afghanistan last month, according to diplomats.

The envoys described the killings as a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Islamic fundamentalist militia. Diplomats, United Nations officials and aid workers say thousands of Hazaras, mostly males, were killed in front of their families in Mazar-i-Sharif, capital of the anti-Taliban alliance in northern Afghanistan, when the Taliban captured the city last month.

A senior diplomat who has interviewed dozens of Hazara families said: “Young men over 16 were brought out of their houses into the streets and had their throats slit in a ritualistic killing. Younger boys had both hands chopped off at the wrist.”

An aid worker said Hazara bodies were left in the streets for days, and people trying to escape from the city were shot. The aid worker said: “They were mutilating children and telling them, ‘You will never fight us again’.”

The Hazaras, a Mongol people who form some 15 per cent of the country’s 18 million population, have resisted Taliban offensives for the past four years from their strongholds in the Hindu Kush mountains.

The Hazaras are Shia Muslims, whom the Sunni Taliban loathe. Iran, which is predominantly Shia, has used the massacre issue as a reasons to mobilise 70,000 troops on the Iran-Afghanistan border.

Last week, Amnesty International released a report saying that thousands of Hazaras were killed in Mazar. But aid workers and diplomats who left the city after the Taliban takeover and have met Hazaras who escaped, say the number of dead could be much higher.

The Taliban have rejected the allegations, but refuse to allow aid workers, the UN or foreign journalists to return to Afghanistan. Mazar has been closed to foreigners.

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I highly doubt if the Hazarawals are being targeted because of this Shia-Sunni issue. Especially when we all know that every non-Balochi ethnicity should fear for his or her life in Balochistan, with the presence of Baloch nationalists/separatist and other elements- be it the Pashtuns, Punjabis, Kashmiris or Hazarawals. And yeah Hazarawals are an easy target with their Mongoloid features.
There is this "islamic" sect in Balochistan (Zikhris) who are considered to be infidels. But as far as I know they haven't been killed ever for their religion, is it because they are ethnic Balochis?

I admire our Hazarawals for not retaliating for their losses.

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The hazaras themselves blame sipah e sihaba/LJ for the massacre, and if we don't do anything for them at some stage they will have to do something for themselves.

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Whenever Shia in Pakistan are being killed the blame goes to Sipah-e-Sahaba. Im not saying this couldn't be true but there must be something else going on as well. The Hazarawals believe they aren't the "enemies" of BLA, BRA, BLF or whatever because they live in Balochistan for many many decades unlike let's say the Punjabis who want to "invade" the land and resources of the Balochs.. [sarcasm]
They are dependent on military protection, can't see how someone will find a solution to end this chaos.

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One sided story. True journalism looks at both sides of the coin. Many Sunnis have also been killed in Quetta in recent months, most likely by Shias. So it is a two-way traffic.

As for the Hazaras, it could also be the ethnic factor. Hazaras are not sons of the soil. They were brought in the late 19th/early 20th century by the colonial masters. They were settled on lands that were historically of Pashtun and Baloch communities. It might be possible the latter was displaced for the purpose. Hazars served the interest of their British masters and received land and money in return. They did not play even a minor role towards Pakistan movement.

The same is the case now where many see them as outsiders and usurpers. Ironic that Hazara Afghan refugees have also become part of the community whereas Pashtun Afghans are languishing in refugee camps.

I saw a picture of General Kiyani a few months ago when he visited Quetta. He apparently inaugurated a gymnasium for the Baloch youth but he was surrounded by Hazaras on all sides. It didn't see a single Baloch or Pashtun in the crowd. Original inhabitants see that as usurpation of their rights.

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As for the Kurram and Gilgit violence, it is a two-way traffic. Violence in Gilgit started after killings of Sunnis.

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A bit more on Hazara history. General Moosa, a Hazara, was appointed as the military chief by Ayub, who had then assumed the position of the Field Marshal. He thought being Hazara, Moosa would not create much troubles for him. Moosa did not do that but he inducted hundreds of his tribesmen into the army on Baloch quota. It was also around that time when Balochs grew restless on a larger scale.

Moosa later became the governor of West Pakistan and his reign is known for massive torture on students and protesters, lack of law and order and other ills. Moosa's role is also highly questionable in the 1965 war. He was highly supportive of Yahya, a fellow Shia, who later went on to become the worst ruler/dictator in Pakistani history.

If you ask Quetta locals, they will tell you that thousands of Hazara refugees came in the city during the Afghan jihad. Moosa was the governor of Balochistan in the late 80s when massive waves of Afghan refugees came to Pakistan as a result of the civil war. He played a key role in the rehab of Hazara who used unfair means and government support to became Pakistani citizens within a few years while their Pashtun counterparts languished in squalid refugee camps. So nearly a half of the present Hazara community is actually Afghan refugees.

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This is what hazara democratic party is saying hazaras going for world wide protests

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it doesn't even make sense......... how did all of sudden the anti-shia people started this targetted killing all over the country again??

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not all of a sudden, this has been happening for the past 63 years, alot of times media do not even report these news!
like recently, 100 shias were killed in Chillas, yet no news of it at alll!

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i meant in context of last 20 years....... in the early 90's there was lot of secterian violence.....which stopped........and then only the talibans were killing shia..suicide bombs and in KPK ,hangu etc.....

the target killing method applied on hazara and in gilgit etc has sprung up more recently......from what i know.

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Where is the proof of 100 deaths? And shias are least likely of all to stay silent. Media is full of them and highlight every issue. Who torched the Bolton Market? Why dozens of vehicles are torched every time shia come on the streets? They even burnt a mosque in the Numaish chowrangi. If it was not the great patience of the affected party, a major riot would have broken out right there and then. What a great peaceful lot!

In Karachi alone, hundreds of Sunnis have been gunned down by shia terrorists during the last year. Yes, there have been retaliatory killings but it has become an ugly tit-for-tat thing. No such thing as repression of Shias especially at a time when the president, PM, national assembly speaker and senate chairman are all of your tribe.

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I had already posted the video on gilgit violence thread. Here is the Interview with a local guy again.

VIEWERS DISCRETION ADVISED- Gradual Genocide of Shia Muslims - What happened in Chilas? - YouTube

About having shia guys in big seats and not doing anything, I personally dont think they care much about it beside Faisal Raza Abdi.

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Saving the Hazara | DAWN.COM

**IT has been a dark spring for the minority Shia Hazara in Balochistan. On Monday, at least six people from this community were killed and three others were injured in a drive-by shooting for which the banned group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility.
**
**A group of people had been sitting in a shoe shop when four assailants on motorcycles opened fire on them, and then escaped. This was the third such incident in the past 10 days.
**
On March 29, eight people had been killed in separate incidents of firing around Quetta. In the first attack, assailants opened fire on a bus full of passengers travelling from Hazara Town towards Quetta city. They managed to flee even as people lay injured and dying on the street.

The attack on the bus was a grim repetition of another that is etched on the bloody landscape of Balochistan. In September last year, a group of men and women from Quetta’s Shia Hazara community travelling to Iran were stopped by armed assailants. The attackers told the women, children and the driver of the bus, who was not Hazara, to remain inside.

All the men and boys were taken out of the bus, lined up on the road outside and shot. When the bullets stopped flying, 29 lay dead or dying on the highway where the massacre took place. The place was Mastung, near the border with Iran, and it took the attackers half an hour to accomplish their grim mission.

**Yet not a single one of the murderers has been caught. **Nearly a month later, on Oct 19, a Crimes Investigation Department report submitted before the Balochistan High Court said that while an important clue had been found regarding the massacre, details could not be disclosed because that would affect further investigation.

And still the killings continue. In the months between last September and now, there have been repeated attacks on the Hazara, who can be physically distinguished from the other people of Balochistan because of their resemblance to their Central Asian and Mongol ancestors.

Again and again the Hazara Shia have been targeted, from poor daily-wage labourers living in Hazara Town to former Olympic athletes leaving their workplaces. They have been assassinated in full view of anonymous onlookers as part of the project of exterminating the Shia from the area.

**Edicts issued by the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi in Balochistan, and published in local Urdu and Hazara newspapers, label members of the community as wajib-ul-qatl, or deserving of death. The community has been warned that its settlements in Hazara Town and on Alamdar Road will be transformed into graveyards as the war against them continues.
**
The words are grim and true; the war against the Hazara has continued in the days following the Mastung attack, with the latest set of killings representing just another episode in this macabre saga of death. Unsurprisingly, the Hazara community — that has not aligned itself with either the Baloch nationalists or the more recently settled Pakhtuns in the area — has become increasingly dejected about its future.

Just days before this latest incident of violence, a report issued by the Balochistan Home Department failed to note with any specificity the lethal conditions faced by the community.

Last week, during a hearing conducted by a three-member bench of the Pakistan Supreme Court, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry expressed his alarm over the silence, asking members of the Balochistan administration to explain why no one suspected of dumping mutilated bodies or shooting down innocent people is ever apprehended.

Undoubtedly, the Shia Hazara are victims of the ineptitude that so incensed the SC justices last week. But there are other specifics that make the Hazara community particularly hapless among the many suffering people of Balochistan.

**First, their small numbers and long-standing loyalties to the Pakistani state, displayed in the military service records of community leaders, puts them at odds with the Baloch nationalist movement.

**Second, the location of their enclave in Quetta, sitting close to both the southward road to Karachi and the highways leading to Iran, has in recent years become the centre of global strategic interest which has created incentives for others to drive them out.

The extermination of the community, either through targeted attacks or through the massacres, thus accomplishes not just sectarian aims, but also forces scared Hazaras fleeing the area to either abandon property or sell it at low prices to waiting land-grabbers.

The lack of local avenues of recourse for a festering human rights issue is exacerbated further by the complexities faced abroad. In previous decades, small minorities such as the Hazara, who have few local options for saving themselves in a milieu wracked by conflict, were able to avail the international human rights platform to draw attention to their plight. Even on this count, the Hazara face a particular disadvantage.

In the United States, last February’s introduction of a resolution by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has promoted the idea that all those fighting for justice in Balochistan are automatically inimical to the Pakistani state. This misperception is particularly harmful to the Hazara cause since it inaccurately conflates a human rights issue — their right to be free of religious persecution — with a nationalist cause that seeks secession rather than accountability as a solution.

All around the world, it is always the smallest, most peace-loving, least politically connected groups that are selected as targets by those seeking to scare the populations they seek to control.

For the Shia Hazara of Balochistan, who are seeking not independence but their rights under the Pakistani constitution, the dearth of local sympathy and the brashness of global generalisations have colluded to produce a landscape where hope seems as elusive as justice.

The writer is an attorney teaching political philosophy and constitutional law.

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Most Hazaras are in Balochistan for the past many centuries, some would have come during the Afghan war and acquired Pakistani citizenship which is true for the Afghans of other ethnicities as well. I personally think that its 40 years now since the Afghan refugees are in Pakistan, the government should try and repatriate the ones that they can in a couple of years and give Pakistani citizenship to the others. As presently there's no record of many of them plus they are not in the tax net as well.

How ever the Hazaras came to Pakistan but the matter of fact is they are peaceful people who are not a danger to the country, and I think we should protect them from these senseless killings.

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This is a vicious cycle which needs to be broken, the gilgit violence was preceded by kohistan killing, and after that chilas massacre. During the late 80's and most of 90's we used to have sectarian killings in which i remember it was so scary that most people would be scared to even go to masjids for prayers, but now for the past many months it mostly seems to be a one way traffic. If we are not able to stem it, we will again go to the 90's which I dont think anyone would want.

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That is a one sided story, sorry to say. As for the top posts in Pakistan bagged by shias, it just shows that how accommodating and liberal the majority Sunni population is. Otherwise, I am afraid not many shias will be able to win provincial assembly seats let alone becoming the pm, president or the national assembly speaker or senate chairman. They will not be able to win in supposedly the hotbeds like ancholi and jt society in Karachi as the constituencies include huge chunks of other areas as well. They may only win a few councilor seats maximum.

As for Abidi, he is aiding and abetting the shia killers in Karachi. If you call him a great sympathizer for the cause then one can also question the cause you are advocating: the killing of Sunnis in Karachi.

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You forgot the killing of Sunnis in Gilgit that started the recent violence? Or is it just hiding the facts?

This is not one-way traffic. I urge you to read the Karachi city pages of major newspapers, especially the Urdu ones. You will find almost daily killings of Sunnis. Yes, shias have also been killed but it is a two-way traffic. Anyone having doubts should go check the facts.

As for the 90s, it was an ugly war between the two sects in which no sane person can say that the shias were innocent. There were dozens of gory attacks on Karachi mosques alone. People having seen those dark times remember everything.

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Oh, my. Please read some history before saying that Hazaras have been in Balochistan for centuries. They arrived in the late 19th century so a maximum one century. And nearly half of them arrived during the Afghan jihad.

Please at least check the facts.Just for your information, it has not been 40 years that the war started in Afghanistan. Every history book say that Russia invaded in 1979 and that is considered the starting point of the jihad. *It has been 33 years at most.
*