Daily Times

It was a very sad and heart breaking experience to attend the sit-in of Shia brothers who were demanding justice for their beloved ones who have been killed with motives.

While writing this with a heavy heart about these victims and the miseries of their families, I would like to quote the incidents that Mach tragedy has reminded me of, the Hazara Town terrorist bombing incident in Feb 2013 in which at least 91 people were killed and 190 were injured. A bomb was hidden in a water tank exploded at a market in Hazara Town.

It was a cold morning and there were 91 dead bodies with the same deadlock situation on burial of dead bodies. The city was freezing and the temperature had gone below minus Zero.

The Shia community was not prepared to bury the dead bodies until the concerned federal authorities table their resignation as some political interest also emerged to ditch the govt. The opposition and media was bashing both the Federal and provincial govts.

My meeting with President Zardari resulted in a decision that we must sort help from the Irani govt as the provincial & federal govt had failed to convince the Community for the burial of dead bodies.

Accordingly, I took it upon myself and left for Tehran via C-130 and upon landing in Tehran, I had my first meeting with interior minister followed by the meeting with then Iranian President Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then Supreme leader who is a leader with wisdom and finally the Foreign Minister.

My request was to use their influence on the senior leadership to convince them to bury the dead bodies. It was very kind of the leadership of Iran that the message was conveyed.

I took off the very next day and met two senior leaders of the Shia community in CMH Quetta while meeting the injured in the Bomb blast.

As per the plan, a team of Cabinet Ministers arrived in Quetta and they also met the Shia leadership. The same day while I was in Quetta, the announcement of burial was declared. The entire operation was kept a secret, only the President, PM and I were aware of the help from Iran.

My timely visit to Iran resolved the matter and always will remain grateful to the supreme leader of Iran and the then president of Iran for their help in the said sensitive issue. However, My visit and effort saved the day and it is a matter of official record.

It is strange that the same situation had recently been replicated in the same cold months as the Shia community again went through the same trauma but there was no one to come to their rescue.

It is important to note that Hazara Shias have always been suffering for the last two decades in the hands of terrorism while the last decade has seen the most deaths and sufferings. The detail of the attacks is as follows:

February 17, 2013 A remote control bomb exploded in vegetable market of Hazara town, 84 killed 160 injured. January 2, 2014 A pilgrim bus coming back from Iran to Quetta came under attack killing 30 and leaving 21 injured. 12 April 2014 Two Hazaras killed down in Saryab road Quetta by unknown persons, on June 9 2014 an attack on Shia pilgrims occurred in a hotel of Taftan, border town of Pakistan and Iran, killing 30 Shia, October 23, 2014 Unknown persons killed Hazaras in a bus near HazarGanji, 8 were killed and 6 injured. On May 25, 2015 In Saleem Complex, Jinnah road four attacks were made on the Hazara community that killed four and injured 9. June 07, 2015 Extremist militants killed the Hazaras at chowk killing 5 people. 5 July 2015 Another attack on joint road at passport office killed 2 including a police man, On 6 November 2015 a vehicle driven by Hazaras Vehicle no AAW512 was attacked on ArbabKaramkhan road Quetta 2 killed 2 injured, on 1 August 2016 Two Hazaras travelling on a rickshaw were attacked on Saryab road killing 2, on 4th October 2016 a bus was attacked on Podgli Chowk in Killi Kirani which was going to Hazara town in which 4 women were killed while dozens injured, on 8 December 2016 A Hazara was killed by unidentified person on his welding shop at Satellite Town Quetta. 5th January 2017 5 Hazaras traveling on yellow caps were shot down near Mubarak Spini road. On 3rd June 2017 Two hazaras, a brother and sister PhD schoolers were killed on spini road while travelling on a motorbike. 23rdJune 2017 2 Hazaras were killed near IG office. 19th July 2017 Hazara family travelling to Karachi from Quetta came under attack on Mastung by extremists. A student including 3 other family members was killed.

On 1st August 2017 Unknown persons killed two Hazaras on Spini road which is the most sensitive area of Quetta. 10 September 2017 Hazara communities travelling from Afghanistan to Quetta were attacked in kuchlak when their vehicle was standing at a petrol pump. As a result 4 Hazaras were killed including 2 brothers and children.

9 October 2017 Unknown person opened fire on Hazara vegetable sellers on Kasi road Quetta 5 killed 1 injured. 20 October 2017 A Hazara labour was shot down while he was riding on his bike going to his work. At least nine members of the Hazara Shia community were killed in a series of attacks from March till May in 2018.

In 2019, a suicide bomb attack in a marketplace in a Hazara housing society killed at least 21 people. This recent incident of killing of 11 coal miners in Quetta has been claimed by Daish and there are a number of questions in my mind as an investigator and many in Pakistan would have the same questions.

In fact, I have always been advocating that Daesh is very much in Pak and operating from Afghanistan. The Daesh handlers had recruited over 80 thousand Pakistanis mostly from South of Punjab.

It is an alarming situation for the government as these trained terrorists are the assets of ISIS and ate Omni present in Pakistan and after returning from Syria/ Turkey, they have gone to their home dist.

The SSP had also joined Daesh since late 2014. Khalid Khorasani, the one who made the first claim to be the Amir of Daesh was also killed later on.

There are nearly six Daesh training centres where ETMI and some Iranians are getting trained to be launched in their respective home countries.

Briefly speaking, the Daesh is following the Indian RAW agenda/ RSS under PM Modi duly supported by Afghanistan.

Daesh has been chosen by anti-Pakistan designers to move their agenda of destabilizing the country particularly KPK & Baluchistan. Unfortunately, certain political quarters in Balochistan gave way to these anti-Pakistan moves, which was quite upsetting, as they did not foresee the consequences for the country.

After the arrest of RAW agent Kulbhushan Yadev there is no doubt left as to how India is involved in destabilizing Pakistan.

India is already using Daesh & RAW in Balochistan, KPK, and other parts of Pakistan to achieve its objectives.

Every successive Indian government has been actively involved to attempt to destabilize Pakistan via Balochistan. India has been doing acts of terrorism through its RAW agent and through its maid agent. RAW has strengthened its terrorist network which is run by Daesh now.

India has adopted the model of killing of Hazara community in order to instigate Iran on the Shia killings and it wasn’t to create sectarian riots in Pakistan. Despite numerous tries India has not been able to achieve this objective due to the fact that Shias have been a patriotic community. India will not be able fulfil its evil agendas.

The Govt must look into this matter seriously to provide full security as it is likely to be repeated if proper action is not taken in time, after all, Hazara community is not supposed to suffer every now and then.

The writer is Chairman of think tank ‘global eye’ & former Interior Minister of Pakistan