Sectarian attack continued: Gunmen kill 14 more people in Quetta

14 people gunned down in Quetta
By Hafeez Baloch - Oct 4th, 2011 (1 Comment)
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Quetta: At least 14 people were killed and seven others injured when armed men opened fire on a bus in Akhtarabad area of Quetta here on Tuesday.
According to The News Tribe correspondent from Quetta, the incident took place in Akhtarabad area on Western bypass when some unidentified assailants, riding motorcycles, opened fire on a bus, leaving 14 people dead and seven others injured.
Police and rescue teams rushed to the spot and shifted the dead and injured to The Bolan Medical Hospital and The Combine Military Hospital. Law enforcement agencies cordoned off the area and started search operation.
Police said that the bus was going to Hazar Gangi areas and all the victims were Shiite Muslim and belonged to Hazara community.The community has long been victim of sectarian violence in Baluchistan as dozens of its members have been killed last month in the province.
Violent protests erupted in parts of Baluchistan following the incident.

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By AFP / Express / Reuters
Published: October 4, 2011

Pakistani Shiite Muslims mourn the killing of their community members in a hospital in Quetta on October 4, 2011.PHOTO: AFP

QUETTA: Fourteen people belonging to the Shia community were killed while seven injured in a firing incident near the Western Bypass in Quetta on Tuesday morning.
About 20 people were on board a bus when unidentified gunmen appeared on a motorcycle and opened fire at the vehicle enroute to Hazara Ganji.
Conflicting media reports stated that the passengers were lined up and subsequently shot by the assailants.
Express 24/7 correspondent Mohammad Kazim reported that the passengers were on their way to the fruit and vegetable market when the assailants opened fire.
“The bus was carrying people mostly from the Hazara
community who were returning from Quetta,” senior police Hamid
Shakeel told Reuters.
“Four gunmen riding two motorcycles opened fire on a bus in the outskirts of Quetta,” local police official Hamid Shakeel told AFP.
“The death toll has risen to 14. Two of the injured who were in critical condition died in hospital. Now 13 Shiite Muslims and one Pashtun have been killed in the attack,” he said after initially putting the death toll at 10.
Meanwhile, police have cordoned off the area and initial investigations of the incident is underway.
Sectarian violence is on the rise in Quetta as 26 Shia pilgrims were killed in a firing incident last month in Mastung, about 30 kilometres southeast of Quetta, when a group of armed men attacked a passenger bus carrying Shia pilgrims from Quetta to Iran.
The Mastung attack was claimed by banned militant outfit Laskar-e-Jhangvi.
Protesting violence
Up to 400 furious Hazaras demonstrated outside the Bolan Medical Complex where the wounded were taken for treatment, condemning the government for inaction over sectarian groups, said police official Wahid Bakhsh.
Angry protesters also reportedly set ablaze the bus that was attacked by the assailants.
“These are not random killings but demonstrate the deliberate targeting of the Shia by armed groups,” said Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific director Sam Zarifi.
“These attacks prove that without an urgent and comprehensive government response, no place is safe for the Shia,” Zarifi added.
The rights group said it had recorded details of at least 15 attacks specifically targeting Shiites across Pakistan.
“Continued failure to address sectarian violence will only exacerbate the general breakdown in law and order in Pakistan,” it said.
Pakistan’s own independent rights watchdog said the killers had been emboldened by a persistent lack of action against sectarian militant groups, which have been implicated in thousands of deaths in past years.
Tuesday’s attack “exposes once again the diminishing writ of the state”, warned the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
Balochistan is also rife with militancy and a regional insurgency waged by separatists who rose up in 2004 demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region’s wealth of natural resources.

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Who are the Hazara?
By Imran Yusuf
Published: October 5, 2011

Pakistani Shiite Muslims mourn next to coffins of their community members during a funeral ceremony in Quetta on October 4, 2011. PHOTO: AFP
KARACHI:
There are over 900,000 Hazara living in Pakistan, a figure larger than the population of Washington DC. Yet this is a vulnerable community, besieged by anti-Shia violence on one side and drawing suspicion and indifference in equal measure on the other.
Old news, a Hazara might say, as a brief look at the community’s past reveals a tradition of persecution, of which yesterday’s attack in Quetta is but the latest atrocity.
The origins of the Hazara are disputed, though there are three primary theories. The Hazara could be of Turko-Mongol ancestry, descendants of an occupying army left in Afghanistan by Genghis Khan. A second theory goes back two millennia to the Kushan Dynasty, when Bamiyan in Afghanistan – home to the large statues blown up by the Taliban – was a centre of Buddhist civilisation. Subscribers to this idea point to the similar facial structure of the Hazaras with those of Buddhist murals and statues in the region.


The most widely-accepted theory is something of a compromise: that the Hazara are mixed-race. Certain Mongol tribes did travel to eastern Persia and what is modern-day Afghanistan, putting down roots and integrating with the indigenous community. This group then formed their own community which became the Hazara, with their distinctive facial features, sometimes termed Mongoloid, which bear the origins of their central Asian ancestry.


Either way the Hazara settled in central Afghanistan, though in the mid-19th Century their brutal history of persecution began when more than half their population was killed or forced into exile.
The Pashtun Amir Abdul Rehman, who the British termed Afghanistan’s Iron Amir during the Raj, invaded the Hazara homeland in the country’s central highlands, forcing them to give up land, and pushing many into exile in Balochistan.

There was already Hazara movement into British India by this point, with migrants working in labour-intensity jobs such as mining. Some Hazaras also came to Quetta during the 19th Century to work on the construction of Indian railways. However, the majority were forced to leave by Rehman’s ethnic cleansing.



But the Hazaras’ history is not exclusively one of victimhood. In 1907 British officer Colonel Claude Jacob raised a regiment made up solely of Hazaras, who had developed a reputation for martial strength, perhaps based on a romanticisation of their possible lineage to Genghis Khan.


The Hazaras who did not make the military cut found jobs as unskilled labourers, for despite their knowledge of agriculture, they owned no land in their new territory.
Quetta’s 1935 earthquake actually helped the Hazara community in some ways. The migration away from the city after the disaster opened up positions in semi-skilled labour, which led some Hazaras to become shopkeepers, tailors and mechanics.
The Second World War saw more Hazaras enlisted by the British Indian Army. Some thrived: one of them was General Musa Khan, who led Pakistan in the 1965 war against India.


Since Partition, however, the Hazaras have remained an underprivileged community. Currently between 500,000 and 600,000 live in Quetta, spread over two slums in the east and west of the city. A large proportion of their income is remittance payments from Iran, the Gulf, Europe and Australia.

Among the Hazara in Quetta are tens of thousands of new migrants escaping the wrath of the Taliban. Persecution of Hazaras persists in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have shown no let-up in their attack on Shias, burning villages and kidnapping community members, forcing further emigration into Pakistan.
In Pakistan, the sectarian violence also has a geopolitical context, with a deeply-embedded belief that the Hazara receive Iranian support. General Zia allowed state actors to support anti-Hazara groups for this reason. As mentioned by columnist Ejaz Haider in this newspaper recently, the view of the Hazara as Iranian proxies still persists in Balochistan.
Four days ago, rallies in Australia, the US, the UK, Austria, Norway, Denmark and Canada marked an international day of protest against the unending wave of attacks on Hazaras in Pakistan. The call has evidently not been heard. Indeed, approximately 250 Hazara citizens of Pakistan have been killed in the past three years.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 5th, 2011.

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Sectarian violence: Another Hazara shot dead, six escape separate attack
By Shehzad Baloch
Published: April 16, 2012

Elderly man sitting at tire shop shot dead; yellow cab carrying six people escapes unhurt. PHOTO: INP/ FILE

QUETTA: The security plan devised by the Government of Balochistan to target terrorists fanning sectarian violence in Quetta appears to have failed as yet another man belonging to the Hazara community was gunned down in broad daylight on Quarry Road, while six others escaped unhurt in a separate attack on Spinny Road.

Salman Ali, an elderly man, was sitting at a tyre shop when two assailants on a motorbike appeared and shot him in the head and chest. The attackers fled from the scene after the incident. The police reached the site and took the body to Provincial Sandeman Hospital.

Police termed the killing a case of sectarian targeted killing saying the victim was Hazara and a resident of Marriabad, a neighbourhood of the Shia community.

The incident triggered panic and most of the shops and markets on Quarry Road, Prince Road, Mezan Chowk and Liaquat Bazaar were closed.

The police and traffic police deputed in these areas were seen advising the people to go home by saying the situation had gone worse again.

The killing was reported in the heart of the city where a heavy contingent of police, Frontier Corps (FC) and other law enforcement agencies were deployed a few days ago following the targeted killings of six people on Monday.

A few hours earlier, members of the Hazara community in a yellow cab escaped unhurt when a group of armed men opened fire at them on Spinny Road.

“The people were on their way to Marriabad from the Hazara town when they were attacked by armed men. However, the people escaped unhurt in the attack,” Shia Conference stated in its statement to condemn the killings.

“It is ironic that the chief minister chaired a high-level meeting with the participation of high officials of law enforcement agencies and very next day, killing of innocent people resumed,” the Shia leaders said.

A number of Hazara people blocked the highway on Western Bypass to condemn the previous targeted killings. They raised slogans against the government and law enforcement agencies for their failure to break up the chain of target killers.

“The inaction on the part of law enforcement agencies is raising questions on their sincerity to protect the Hazara community,” Muhammad Ali, a young protestor said, adding that the Hazara community is peaceful in Quetta but they are being pushed against the wall.

Angry protestors also burnt tyres at Mezan Chowk and on Alamdar Road to register their protest.



Chief Minister Balochistan Nawab Aslam Raisani returned to Islamabad after chairing a high-level meeting pertaining to the law and order situation in Quetta.

Banned outfit Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) claimed responsibility for the targeted killings of Hazara community.

The spokesperson of LJ who introduced himself as Ali Shair Haideri told local media in Quetta that his organisation carried out targeted attacks on Quarry Road and Spinny Road. Talking from specified location, he said his organisation will continue its attacks in the future. Quetta: Suicide bomber kills five students, injures 53 others Updated 20 hours ago [Watch Now] [Quetta: Suicide bomber kills five students, injures 53 others] [Print] ShareThis605 570 33 Email1 QUETTA: At least five students were killed and 53 injured in a suicide blast that targeted a university bus near Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) office on Samungli Road in Quetta on Monday morning, Geo News reported. According to sources, an suicide suicide bomber blew himself up near the bus of Balochistan University of Information Technology at Samungli Road, killing five students and wounding 53 others including four policemen and four female students, local police told. "It was not immediately clear if the bus was the target but we are investigating," police officer added. Many students are in critical condition who were shifted to CMH while others are being treated at Civil Hospital and Bolan Medical Complex, Quetta. The bus was taking the students to the university and was severely damaged while a rickshaw and a motorcycle were also affected due to the impact. The banned militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) has claimed the responsibility for the attack. === Quetta violence: Bomb attack on bus kills five students About 40kg explos­ives were used in the remote-contro­lled bomb, plante­d inside a car which was parked nearby. By Our Correspondent Published: June 19, 2012 About 40kg explos­ives were used in the remote-contro­lled bomb, plante­d inside a car which was parked nearby. PHOTO: REUTERS QUETTA: At least five students from the ethnic Hazara community were killed and over 70 others, including policemen and children, wounded in a bomb attack on a university bus in Quetta city on Monday. “The remote-controlled bomb was planted in a jeep parked along a roadside in the Samungali Road neighbourhood of the city. The bomb was detonated when a bus carrying students of Balochistan Information Technology University drove past,” Mir Zubair, the capital city police officer (CCPO), told journalists. The bus was carrying 75 students – five of them died on the spot and the rest sustained injuries, according to the CCPO. The casualties were shifted to the Sandeman Hospital, CMH and Bolan Medical College Hospital where a state of emergency was declared. Sources said that all the students on board the bus belonged to the ethnic Hazara community, who are Shias by sect. They added that a police van was escorting the bus when it was targeted. “Apparently, it was a sectarian attack,” a source told The Express Tribune. The Hazara community has repeatedly been targeted in Balochistan over the past few years. Medics confirmed that more than 70 students were treated at the hospitals – seven of them are said to be in critical condition. Some passers-by, including women and children, also sustained shrapnel wounds. The house of provincial minister for excise and taxation and three private schools were also damaged in the blast. According to the Bomb Disposal Squad, 45 to 50 kilogrammes of explosives were used in the blast. No group has claimed responsibility for the blast, but similar attacks on the Hazara community in the past were blamed on the banned sectarian outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Governor Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi, Chief Minister Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani, and political parties Phaktoonkwa Milli Awami Party, Jamaat-e-Islami, National Party, Hazara Democratic Party and Hazara Students Organisation denounced the blast. Published In The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2012. = last targets bus carrying Shia pilgrims in Quetta, 14 killed Eight killed, 30 injure­d in blast on bus in the Hazarg­anji area of Quetta. By Web Desk Published: June 28, 2012 A paramilitary soldier stands guard near a damaged bus destroyed in a bomb attack in the outskirts of Quetta June 28, 2012. PHOTO: REUTERS QUETTA: A blast in the Hazarganji area of Quetta targeted a bus carrying Shia pilgrims from Taftan to the provincial capital on Thursday, Express News reported. 14 people were killed and 30 were injured as a result of the blast. Eyewitnesses said that the bus was carrying pilgrims from Taftan and it was targeted when it was passing near a fruit market in the Hazarganji area. Around 15-20kg explosives were used in the blast. A woman and a policeman are also among the dead. Earlier Express News had reported eighteen people killed. Some eyewitnesses have also claimed that the blast was a suicide attack, officials have not confirmed this as yet. Initial reports also state that four policemen on the mobile were injured after the blast. There is no confirmation on the nature of the blast as yet. It has also been reported that the bus was destroyed as a result of the blast. The injured were shifted to Civil hospital and Bolan Medical Complex. Correction: An earlier version of this article had incorrectly mentioned the location of Taftan. The correction has been made.