Daily Times

Around three dozen people under the banner of Haqooq-e-Khalq Movement (HKM) came out on the Liberty Roundabout showing solidarity with the families of the victims of Mastung and Peshawar attacks along with independent candidate from Karachi’s NA-247 constituency Jibran Nasir, on Wednesday.

Angry protesters held placards and chanted slogans against religious extremism, genocide, terrorism and governance. They also chanted slogans against the government and killing of innocent Baloch and Pashtun.

Lawyer Jalila Haider’s sister Dr Alia also participated in the protest. She expressed her anger over media houses and politicians on ignoring the martyrdom of Pashtuns, saying they were only obsessed with the arrival of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam to Pakistan. She said that Baluchistan is a province of widows and orphans now as every home bears the loss of a loved one every day.

“We can feel the pain of our people and we cannot stay silent anymore,” she said.

“We in Lahore stand in complete solidarity with our fellow citizens in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa who are suffering from a new round of terrorist attacks. We find it utterly disgraceful that the media and politicians largely ignored the killing of almost 200 citizens in Mastung, showing that they do not accord the same value to people living on the margins. We will not let this happen again. Through this protest, we want to affirm our commitment to the lives of all human beings, irrespective of their ethnic, linguistic, or religious background. More specifically, we want to tell our brothers and sisters in Balochistan and KP that we share your grief and we shall stand together to overcome the dark forces of violence that threaten to divide us,” Ammar Jan said.

HKM is a Pakistan-wide campaign for the enforcement of the fundamental rights in our Constitution through grassroots organising, momentum and pressure.

Published in Daily Times, July 19^th 2018.