Daily Times

Wouldn’t it have been a whole lot better if the prime minister hadn’t courted so much controversy and gone to Quetta earlier to condole with families of the Hazara victims? While he did, sort of, make up for his unacceptable remarks by saying that those were directed towards opposition parties, there is still the feeling that he should not have distanced himself from the oppressed quite like he did. Still, all is well that ends well and this episode seems to have culminated as nicely as was possible under the extraordinary circumstances. All important offices of the state, all the way up to the prime minister, will now have to keep a very close eye on the security of the Hazara community, which is only appropriate considering that they have lost thousands of innocent people to senseless sectarian attacks over almost three decades and so far not one attacker has ever been apprehended, much less punished.

Therefore it will also be important to clear the mistakes of the past, without which the forward march will not be free of problems. Quetta is a very small main city by Pakistan’s standards, after all, and has for the longest time had the presence of all types of security and intelligence agencies, and the fact that such mindless genocide can still be perpetrated over there baffles the imagination. It was to express such concerns that suffering, sobbing Hazara people wanted the prime minister himself to come to them and tell them what was going to be done about their fate. That the PM equated that with blackmail, for some very odd reason, is very sad and reflects very poorly on the occupant of the highest office in the land.

It is important for everybody to learn very important lessons from all that has happened in the last few days. Nobody should have to go through what the Hazara have been going through for the longest time. And when they do, all of the rest of us are guilty, if not by anything else than by our silence and inaction. We must all, then, urge the government to make sure that no such incident is ever allowed to take place on Pakistan’s soil ever again. If our rulers and the many agencies that litter the security landscape cannot deliver us this much, then they have no business lording over us.