The roots of the sectarian violence, like most discrimination against minority communities, can be traced back to the military dictatorship of Ziaul Haq. In his eagerness to impose a hardline Sunni interpretation of Islam in the country, Zia created and strengthened militant groups that initially fought in Afghanistan and Kashmir, but later turned their guns on the Shia community at home. Unfortunately, successive governments in the 1990s did nothing to throttle these militant groups and the situation kept getting worse over time.
Even before that, however, the Hazara community has been singled out by those who condemn them as imposters and infidels. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan was vicious against them. In Pakistan, it was the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi that first started issuing edicts against the Hazaras. For a community that is over half a million strong, it is most tragic that the Hazaras are now being made to feel like strangers in their own land. Although efforts are being made by the government to beef up security in the city as Frontier Corps and the police have jointly launched a search operation in different areas of Quetta and arrested suspects, more needs to be done to ensure that no more lives are lost.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 30th, 2012.
COMMENTS (3)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
Zia is not a scape goat. He was indeed the real idiot who sowed the seeds of a hateful religion in The country.
"The roots of the sectarian violence, like most discrimination against minority communities, can be traced back to the military dictatorship of Zia ul Haq"
Zia has become a very convenient scape goat for all the failures of Pakistani society.
Can anyone say Raymond Davis?