KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE

The armed terrorists had struck Quetta again killing eight people and injuring more than a dozen others on the pretext of sectarian violence. The trouble started when armed terrorists on motorcycles sprayed bullet on the people traveling on a small van from Hazara Township to Marriabad. Five people died on the spot and three others died in hospital while about a dozen people sustained bullet and other injuries. One of the deceased persons was a woman. The victims belonged to Hazara Tribe and were Shia. It is suspected that the sectarian terrorists had made them target to create anarchy in Pakistan on sectarian ground. The incident sparked off trouble and violence when enraged people exchanged gunfire with the police injuring many police personnel. The trouble spread to the whole locality involving local residents of Hazara Town to come out of their residences and stage a protest demonstration. However, some miscreants were involved in attacking the hospital and ransacked some of the department. Almost all the significant political forces and parties had supported the call for General Strike and a shutter down protest against killing the innocent people of their no crime. The shutter down strike was complete and unprecedented in Quetta. It demonstrated solidarity with the victims of violence. The unqualified support to the victims of violence indicated that the society as a whole had condemned the killing on sectarian ground and the criminals stood isolated as they enjoy no support from any quarter in this province. However, the violence spread to neighbouring localities creating a tense atmosphere in this Capital city of Quetta. It is the duty of the Government to unearth the real culprits targeting the Shia community on sectarian grounds and they should be brought to book without any delay. It had become a permanent feature since the Iranian revolution that Shia elements were targeted by a group of sectarian terrorists. We suggested in these columns that the sectarian violence should come to an end restoring peace in Balochistan on permanent basis. The Baloch people are secular by nature and they are not involved in sectarian killings or they are opposed to Hazara tribesmen for any reasons. They have no conflict with Hazara tribes. The terrorists are drawing their strength from somewhere else and not from the Baloch society which is staunchly secular and highly humanitarian in its approach. There is no history of violence against minorities, including religious and cultural minorities, as the Balochs dealt with the minority in a decent and gentle way for hundreds of years and the minorities had no complaints in the entire history. This wave of Shia killing is related with the Islamic Revolution in Iran and since then the violence against Shia or the Hazara Tribe had been started by the criminal conspirators or some no state actors having their own vested interests. There are millions of Sunni Baluchs residing in Iranian Balochistan and they are living in complete peace and harmony having no sectarian conflict with the majority Shia population. Some outsiders did try to disrupt the peace and tranquility in Iranian Balochistan by undertaking some subversive activities which failed to attract the attention of people from Iranian Balochistan. Same is the case with the Baloch dealing with their religious and cultural minorities where the minorities had no complaints to this date. Now it is the duty of the Government to investigate rather properly chase and unearth the real culprits who off and on targets the Hazara or Shia people purely on sectarian grounds. Such incidents had also taken place in Gilgit and Baltistan where a score of people were identified first and killed while allowing others to go. The incident of Gilgit and Quetta may have some links or some common objectives, it is generally believed by some people.