Mastung tragedy: Sit-ins end after Nisar promises crackdown

Hazara community to bury their dead today; shutter-down strike called in Karachi.

QUETTA/ PESHAWAR/ LAHORE/ KARACHI:

The Hazara community ended their two-day long sit-in late Thursday night after Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar assured them of launching a targeted operation against the Mastung blast perpetrators.

The mass protests were triggered by Tuesday’s tragedy, in which 22 Shia pilgrims were killed. A suicide bomber hit a bus making its way through the Pakistan-Iran highway in Mastung on Tuesday evening, which was claimed by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).

The next day, the Hazara community refused to bury their dead. In Quetta, members of the community staged a sit-in along with 28 coffins on Alamdar Road – a predominantly Shia Hazara neighbourhood – on Wednesday and Thursday.

“We are fed up of picking up bodies. Our graveyard is packed with the bodies of young peopl e. We’re actually running out of space,” said Mubarak Ali, a close relative of Ali Hassan, who died in the suicide attack.

However, the distraught families, who had been protesting for more than 40 hours, ended the sit-in on Thursday night and announced they would finally bury their dead today (Friday) at 10am.

“The gruesome attack on Hazara community has saddened the country. The Hazara people are peaceful and patriotic,” Chaudhry Nisar said while negotiating with Shia leaders. “It is regrettable, the way the community has been targeted in Balochistan.”

The interior minister vowed to take action.

“I cannot give you people a timeframe but I assure you that we will trace and fight the culprits.” “We will make Balochistan a peaceful place to live,” he added.

Meanwhile, protests erupted in all major cities, bringing them to a grinding halt.



Sindh shut down

Similar sights of women and children protesting marked the sit-ins organised across Sindh – in Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur.

Karachi was partially shut down on Thursday when Shia organisations, particularly the Majlis-e-Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM), organised around a dozen sit-ins, blocking major arteries.

Three incidents were reported in which the protesters scuffled with the law enforcers and the latter resorted to baton-charge and tear-gas shelling.

“Police and rangers must not provoke our peaceful youths,” the MWM spokesperson warned. “The provincial government should take action against the law enforcers who used force against our peaceful mourners including women.”

On the other hand, law enforcers said they only intended to end the sit-ins to avoid possible terrorist attacks targeting the protesters.

MWM has called a shutter-down strike on Friday across Karachi. “The sit-ins will continue until the government meets our legitimate demands,” announced Allama Hassan Zafar Naqvi, the deputy secretary general of MWM Pakistan at a press conference on Thursday.

In Hyderabad and Sukkur, MWM members staged sit-ins, blocking the three main highways and blocking inter-provincial traffic.

K-P comes to a standstill

In Peshawar, the Imamia Rabita Council (IRC) and MWM jointly organised a sit-in on the Grand Trunk road. The protesters, which included dozens of children as well, shouted slogans against the government for its failure to provide security to the public. “The government has completely failed to ensure even the rights of its citizens,” said MWM’s Maulana Irshad Khalili. Separately, in Dera Ismail Khan, the women of the local Shia community held a protest rally.

The MWM’s leader Allama Imdad Naseemi, who is leading the protest, said like before they will call off their sit-in once the Quetta protest ends.

Protest in Punjab

Hundreds of people continued their protest sit-in in front of the Governor House, Punjab. They refused to budge until the perpetrators are arrested.

For the security of the protesters, Lahore Police blocked the road from Alhamra up till the Governor House and deployed more than 100 policemen.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2014.