Terrorized Hazara community in Quetta city of Pakistan is dreading another attack from insurgents as the government of that country bears no intention in mind to act against elements responsible for killing more than 1300 people of the community in past 13 years or so. Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Lashkar-e Jhangvi (LeJ), Ahle Sunnat Wal Jama'at (ASWJ), Sepah Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Jaish-ul-Islam and other militant groups have ruined peace in the life of the people of Pakistan. Such terrorists groups have not only been massacring people in the name of religion but also have been promoting religious hatred by pronouncing Shia Muslims as ‘infidels.’
Pakistani government’s disinclination to nab the terrorists who openly operate and butcher the people within main cities of Pakistan indicates that it has either sympathy for them or is intentionally not acting to protect its citizen from religious extremists. The Hazaras in Pakistan have suffered the greatest loss in hand of religious extremists. Non-existence of a plan from the government to dismantle their killers has caused their hopes to fade away.
In 2013 alone, the community has lost nearly 250 lives in the most sophisticated kind of attacks in the history of Pakistan. Three major suicide attacks and bomb blasts in Hazara localities in Quetta on January 10, February, 16 and June 30 took lives of 120, 89 and 32 of members the community respectively. Based on statistics from The Pakistan Religious Violence Project, an undertaking of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, about 243 (or 75%) out of 323 Shias killed in Pakistan in 2013 are Hazaras.
LeJ has been openly claiming responsibility for Hazara killings in Pakistan. Nevertheless, the Pakistani government has failed to capture and prosecute a single LeJ terrorist. It in itself talks of the government unwillingness to stop further killing of the community that is known for its love for peace and harmony.
LeJ hide-outs and training camps located in southern Punjab is now no secret even to the common people, let alone the government. Its leader, Malik Ishaq, who was released in 2009 after spending 14 years in jail, walks freely in public expressing pleasure over the heinous activities of his group and threatening to carry out more attacks. Despite that neither the central nor the provincial governments of Pakistan are having a plan in mind to take action against LeJ.
Another terror attack on the Hazara community in Quetta is to take place sooner or later. Yet, there is no effective plan to counter it. It is high time for the United Nations, human rights organizations and the international community to play their roles by pressurizing the Pakistani authorities to stop the ongoing genocide of Hazara people in Pakistan.