Unidentified assailants kill seven Hazaras in Quetta
Saturday, September 1st, 2012 1:27:02 by Faisal Farooq
In another act of barbarism, unidentified people on Saturday killed seven Hazaras in separate firing incidents in Hazar Ganji, the area of provincial metropolis.
Police officials said that unidentified armed men open fire on a car near the Fruit Market, killing five people belonging to Hazara community.
In second incident, unknown assailants targeted two people in the Hazra Ganji, killing them at the spot.
Although security forces cordoned off the area after the incidents, the assailants managed to escape from the area, as happened in any such incident.
In the meantime, people of Hazara community took out on roads and blocked the Barwari road along with the Western bypass while protesting against the killings.
Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) showed its outrage saying that these kinds of incidents were leading the province towards anarchy. The party demanded that those involved in the incident should be arrested.
Earlier on Thursday, unidentified gunmen shot dead a Shia judge along with his driver and police bodyguard in Quetta in a suspected sectarian attack. The incident took place when the session judge Zulfiqar Naqvi was traveling to his office.
Last week, three members of the Hazara community in Quetta were killed and four others injured, including a two-year-old passerby, when armed assailants opened fire on the yellow cab they were traveling in on Spiny Road in the Killi Mubarak area.
The country’s Shia leaders have called on the government to form a judicial commission to investigate the bloodshed.
Balochistan has been a flashpoint for sectarian violence between majority Sunnis and Shias, who make up around 20 per cent of the population.
Sectarian conflict has left thousands of people dead since the late 1980s, and the province also suffers Taliban attacks and a separatist insurgency.
Tags: Balochistan, Hazar Ganji, Hazara community, HDP, Quetta, Sectarian Killing, Session Judge, Shia MuslimsShort URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=31972
Posted by Faisal Farooq
on Sep 1 2012. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan.
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“Balochistan has been a flashpoint for sectarian violence between majority Sunnis and Shias, who make up around 20 per cent of the population.”
This last assertion is misleading by portraying the situation as tit-for-tat when Hazara community is the target of these killings. This pattern is continuing non-stop, so Pakistani should have opened an investigation probing the perpetrators of these killings. If Pakistani fails to live to its responsibility, then Hazaras need to take their case to UN and other international organizations. Moreover, international community must show solidarity with the Hazara community and help in putting an end to massacres.