More killings in Quetta

Like a Victorian widow, the time seems to have come for Quetta to cover itself in a permanent draping of black. Death constantly stalks the city and has sprouted so many tentacles, that, it is impossible to disentangle them. Nationalist violence mingles with that inflicted by the agencies; extremist militants lurk in many places and it has become impossible to know why some killings take place at all. This is certainly true of the latest act of murder in the Balochistan capital as several members of the Hazara community transported vegetables to a market frequented by Hazaras. Six men died. It is impossible to say if they were targeted because of their ethnicity or their sect. Either of these factors could have resulted in their tragic death, as they went peacefully about the task of earning a living.

This is not the first time the Hazara have been hit by men who drive up with their guns and rockets. Earlier this month, seven members of the community died after rockets and bullets were fired at them as they gathered at a graveyard. An extremist group claimed responsibility. It seems likely the same forces were involved this time too. The Hazara, one of the many ethnic minorities living in Quetta, have in the past too been attacked as intolerance and hatred grows in our society, spurred on by the availability of arms of every kind, which it seems can be obtained by anyone seeking to kill. We need to face a simple fact. No society can sustain ceaseless violence of the kind we see now and still survive. Not even the most advanced life-support machines can keep it alive. We are watching before our eyes the slow, and horrendously painful, death of a nation. Each killing brings us a little closer to this as more blood is lost. Worst of all, there seems to be no cure in sight and not even sufficient discussion as to how we are to build a dyke to stop the waves of intolerance that have left bodies scattered across streets everywhere in our country. A start could be a complete overhaul of our madrassas, something that has often been promised but never done. In the long term, the situation will change only when state and society re-orient themselves away from a world view that considers such violence being carried out by foreign powers and towards reality.



Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2011.