- Tragic targeting of long grieving community
Again the familiar routine, two Hazara men shot dead in Quetta on Saturday by gunmen who then make a leisurely getaway, secure in the knowledge that they too will become part of that ever expanding list of invisible ‘unknown perpetrators’, not one of whom has been arrested and faced a court of law so far. Strange, but true, this abysmal failure of innumerable law-enforcing agencies and security forces, who are otherwise effectively combating Baloch separatists, indeed have nearly broken the back of the so-called nationalist insurgency. The latest target killings, coming on top of two other incidents earlier in April, that left three Hazara men dead, and one wounded, have driven the angry, suffering community to more protests, hunger strikes and sit-ins, which starting on Sunday, continue despite (optimistic) assurances given by the federal interior minister and Balochistan chief minister of early arrests of the killers, with Hazara leaders insisting on pleading their case before the army chief himself. April was a cruel month for the now endangered local Hazara community, the three incidents the last straw, and it has now reached the end of its apparently limitless patience.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the banned extremist group affiliated with al Qaeda and Taliban, was and remains the ruthless nemesis of the hapless sectarian minority community, and feeble Reason can have little impact on its brand of bigotry, barbarism and superstition. LEJ, using bombs, grenades, firearms, and suicide bombers, is behind the most savage and vile past attacks, including the July 2003 Quetta Mosque bombing (44 martyred, 65 wounded), September 2010 Quetta Quds Day bombing (73 martyred, 160 wounded), September 2011 Mastung Bus massacre (26 martyred) and the March 2004 Ashura procession assault (42 martyred, 100+ wounded). It openly prints threats against Hazaras in newspapers, its killers are able to flee the scenes of their heinous crimes with ‘complete impunity’ in broad daylight. The UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and even the OIC (!) have condemned this unabated slaughter, and the government’s choice couldn’t be starker: eliminate the LEJ extremists or be a shameless spectator of a Hazara holocaust. This ‘Final Solution’ can and must be immediately stopped, for Pakistan’s sake too.
