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The Hazara people’s unremitting suffering

Under attack, once again, the beleaguered Shia Hazara community of Quetta has desperately been trying to draw attention to its plight. Following three incidents in April – the latest one on last Saturday – that claimed five lives the Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) took out a protest rally, women set up a hunger strike camp outside the Quetta press club, and others led by provincial Law Minister Syed Agha Raza staged a sit-in outside the Baluchistan Assembly, demanding a stop to target killings, arrest of the perpetrators, and a meeting with the Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. Chief Minister Abdul Quddus Bizenjo, Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti, and Federal Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal tried to assure the HDP leaders they would do their utmost to arrest those responsible for the attacks, but to no avail. The protests continued for three days, ending only after the CoAS arrived in Quetta and met with notables of the community, promising action would be taken against the perpetrators.

The insistence on eliciting an assurance from the Chief of the Army Staff rather than government leaders seems pretty bewildering, but the Hazaras are right to think he is better positioned to help. His capability to deal with the challenge is far greater than that of the civilian authority as the army has a heavy presence in the province, and all the premier intelligence agencies are under its control. It is worth mentioning also that in the past there existed a nagging suspicion, iterated by the hunger strikers leader Jalila Haider, that the sectarian terror outfit, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has been claiming credit for almost every attack on the Hazara Shias, had the patronage of State institutions. But the past, as someone famously said, is a foreign country; things were done differently there.

Over the last two decades, countless Hazara men, women, and children have been massacred in all sorts of places: roads, business centres, mosques, bazaars, and playgrounds. They are an easy target because their facial features give away their sectarian identity. Most of them came from Afghanistan in the 1880s to escape persecution under Emir Abdul Rehman Khan’s rule, and some others in the 1990s to evade oppression by the Taliban emirate. They lived in peace in Baluchistan’s traditional secular culture until, promoted by certain Gulf governments, the scourge of violent sectarianism struck root in this country, spreading its tentacles to Baluchistan as well. Successive governments at the Centre and in the provinces looked the other way as money flowed from Gulf countries into sectarian seminaries, a vast majority of them created with the express purpose to produce extremists for fighting their proxy battle for regional ascendancy. It is no coincidence that nearly all leaders of various sectarian organizations and their foot soldiers, deceased or alive, were/are alumni of sectarian seminaries.

These people have caused a huge loss of life and also harmed the social fabric of society, yet there is no determined effort to deal with this particular aspect of terrorism. It’s been more than three years when in the wake of the carnage at the Army Public School in Peshawar all political parties leaders put their heads together and came up with a 20-point National Action Plan, which among other measures called for dealing firmly with sectarian terrorists, ensuring against reemergence of proscribed organizations, and registration and regulation of religious seminaries. All these points remain unimplemented either due to lack of will or sympathy some in power harbour for sectarian elements.

Significantly, the hunger strikers in Quetta also asked for the arrest of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat Balochistan leader, Ramzan Mengal, who they believed enjoys police protection despite making provocative hate speeches against the Shia community. This outfit is a reincarnation of three proscribed sectarian organizations Sipah-Sahaba, Millat-e-Islami, and Laskhar-e-Jhangvi. It is pertinent to recall here the Justice Qazi Faez Isa report, released in December 2016, on the terrorist attack in Quetta that left 100 people dead – a vast majority of them lawyers. The report had taken exception to a meeting then interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan held with Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat chief Mohammad Ahmad Ludhianvi at the Punjab House inside the Red Zone. The minister not only justified the meeting but also defended proscribed sectarian organizations. Confronted by members of the Senate who expected him to try and explain his hobnobbing with the head of a banned sectarian outfit, he gave them an astounding answer. He said that proscribed sectarian organizations could not be equated with terrorist groups, and that distinction needed to be made between organizations that are ‘purely’ terrorists and those involved in sectarian clashes. There should be separate laws, he went on, for organizations that are banned on the basis of terrorism connection and those banned on sectarian grounds. That is as phony a contention as can be. The reason for outlawing them is the same: acts of terrorism. They all have been killing innocent people the same way. There can be no civilized argument for making a distinction between them. The former interior minister obviously has had a soft spot for these people. Even so, he could not be saying what he said without a nod from his party’s top leadership. Unfortunately, almost all major political parties court leaders of sectarian organizations, some openly and some secretly, with the intention to cash in on the support of their followers at the election time.

The security assurance General Bajwa gave to the Hazara people is important. But the threat of more attacks will not go away unless and until all others concerned fulfill their part of the responsibility.

Saida Fazal, "The Hazara people’s unremitting suffering," Business Recorder. 2018-05-03.
Keywords: Political science , Hazara Democratic Party , Government leaders , Facial features , Religious seminaries , Political parties , Army cheif , Qamar Javad Bajwa , HDP