Hazara Genocide In Balochistan

 

Balochistan, whenever we hear this word, so many thoughts come to our minds. Balochistan Always remains in highlights for bad events. Recent events once again brought Balochistan into the limelight when a few days back an ambush occurred on Fc troops in Harnai where 10 personals got martyred and several injured. And recently attack coalminers in the Mach area.

On the 4^th of January, when people were celebrating the new year and praying for a good thing in this year as 2020 was destructive because of Covid-19, we woke up with terrible news that 11 coalminers in the Mach area were attacked. This news itself was very horrible but when I hear those labors were from the hazard community and were slaughtered, I was shaken.

The Hazara are a Persian-speaking cultural group inborn to and mainly exist in, the mountainous region of central Afghanistan. They speak the Hazaragi dialect of Persian. They are the third-largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and are also a noteworthy marginal group in Pakistan, where there is a population of between 650,000 and 900,000, mostly in Quetta. Neighborhoods in the city of Quetta with bulging Hazara populaces include Hazara Town and Mehr Abad (Marri Abad). They are Shia Muslims.

Acts of violence involving Sunni Muslims and their Shia counterparts in Pakistan have been plain since the 1980s. But in Balochistan it was started in 2001 When Eight passenger were shot dead and five harshly injured when they were moving in a van en route from Hazara Town to Alamdar road. Later, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the attack. The Hazara populace in the area has had a very painful history. Time and time again, they have been targeted by different groups for their religious views as well as their origin.

Even the 11.6-kilometer distance via Spini Road that connects the two regions has proven deadly. According to a report by Pakistan’s National Commission for Human Rights, more than 2,000 Hazaras have been killed since 2004. The extreme attack was On January 10, 2013, the suicide bombing of a snooker club killed 96 people and injured at least 150. Many of the dead were trapped in a second blast 10 minutes after the first, hitting those who had gone to the aid of the injured. On February 17, 2013, a bomb detonated in a vegetable market in Quetta’s Hazara Town, killing at least 84 Hazara and injuring more than 160. The LeJ claimed liability for both attacks, the blood-spattered attacks from sectarian violence in Pakistan since its independence in 1947.

Hazara living in Balochistan are mostly weak, because of their characteristic East Asian ethnic features as well as Shia religious affiliation. Hazara joining in religious demonstrations, praying in mosques, or gathering in markets have been targeted by bombers and gunmen. They have been divided in Quetta’s two Hazara neighborhoods by authorities on the pretext of security. But that could not prevent the attacks.

Pakistani authorities need to take efficient, rights-respecting methods to protect the Hazara community. This means splitting all armed militant factions and taking to account those responsible for planning, ordering, provoking, or allowing religious bloodshed.