The recent killing of 11 Hazara Shi’a coalminers in Balochistan, which has since then been claimed by the militant outfit Daesh, presents the biggest national security challenge that the state has faced in quite some time. The province was in a bad enough state as it was, despite heavy presence of all sorts of security agencies, and for an international terror organisation like Daesh to have taken root there firmly enough to carry out such attacks speaks of a security and intelligence failure of very large proportions. The government has promised quick justice and compensation for all affected families, as usual, but such politically correct gestures are no longer going to hide the many failures that authorities like to just brush under the carpet and get on with life as usual. Attacks against the ethnic Hazara community have become so commonplace, just because of their minority sectarian denomination, that they do not even register beyond a very short period anymore. There was relative calm and quite recently, but data that has piled over the years points clearly towards very brutal persecution of the Hazara and all the time the state has made all sorts of promises but never really done anything on the ground to make much of a difference. The new interior minister, Sheikh Rashid, waved his fists and made tall promises as if he is finally going to put an end to this betrayal of the most basic rights of the Hazara community. Yet so many before him have done the same thing and made the same claims. Hopefully this particular government will not only prove good for its word when it comes to compensation of all the families that have been torn apart, but also go many steps further and finally rid Balochistan of the presence of all the bad guys. The country cannot afford to go back to the days of frequent bomb blasts and terrorist attacks. We have paid more than any other country in terms of both blood and money when it comes to facing the fallout of someone else’s wars and interests in the region. Yet it is now up to the government and the security establishment of Pakistan to keep all its people safe. So far, considering how the Hazara community, at least, continues to live in very justifiable fear, there is clearly a lot more work to be done before the country is truly safe. *