How Pakistan has failed its Hazara minority community
On April 28, Mohammad Ali Rezai was killed in Quetta. He had 11 bullet wounds, in his forehead, hands, legs and other parts of his body. Rezai was accompanied by a man named Jaffar who became the second victim of the attack. The assailants were unidentified.
On April 22, Mohammad Ali and Mohammad Zaman were killed in what was said to be a targeted attack. The shooters were unidentified.
Rewind: On February 17, 2013, 84 people were killed when an improvised explosive device attached to a vehicle placed in a fruit and vegetable market went off. The number of injured was more than 200 that day.
On January 10, 2013, in two blasts inside and outside a snooker club more than 81 people were killed. More than 121 people were wounded. Most of those who were killed or injured were unarmed young men who were out for an evening of fun with friends. Most of them belonged to one ethnicity and one faith.
In December 2012, two brothers were shot, one fatally, at the Airport Road.
In October 2012, four men, Atta Ali, Muhammad Ibrahim, Ghulam Ali and Syed Awiz were shot by unidentified bike-borne assailants, who opened fire on a shop in a market on the Sirki Road.
In September 2012, seven men were killed in two shooting incidents. The assailants were unidentified men on motorcycles.
In August 2012, three men riding in a taxi on Spiny Road were killed when unidentified assailants opened fire on them. Three people were wounded.
On October 4, 2011, four gunmen fired at a bus in which most of the travellers were of a certain ethnicity and a particular faith; 14 of the passengers were killed.
On September 20, 2011, close to the town of Mastung, a bus was stopped by a group of men carrying weapons: "sophisticated guns and rocket launchers". The bus was en route to Iran with pilgrims going for visits to religious sites. People were asked to declare their faith, and all those belonging to one faith were asked to leave. The rest of the people were identified as belonging to another faith, and were shot. Six were wounded. A militant group took responsibility of the carnage.
In July 2011, a Suzuki van at the Spini Road was attacked, and 11 people, including a woman, were killed.
In June 2011, three pilgrims en route from Iran were killed when their bus was attacked in the Hazar Ganji area.
On June 2011, Syed Abrar Hussain, a former boxing Olympian and the deputy director of the Pakistan Sports Board, was killed when his car came under heavy firing. The shooters were unidentified men on motorcycles.
On May 7, 2011, "Ten men armed with automatic assault rifles and two rocket launchers on three vehicles, two pick-up trucks and a car, took up positions on the Bypass Road, above the Hazara Town, near a public park and a graveyard," and killed seven people.
In December 2010....
The reports continue, words become blurry as the timeline of deaths reads like the glossary given at the end of a hardcover that you skim through after you are done reading the complex history of a war-torn country.
People cease to be human beings, as they become statistics in a war they never started, did nothing to accelerate and had no inkling of how to end. This is the oft-told story of those who exist in peace and die in violence for simply no fault of their own. Their very lives become a test of nerves, patience, endurance, inhuman bravery, an endless wait for justice, and a daily reminder of inconsequential-ness of their existence.
Every day until the day they die, they pay the price of being who they are, where they were born, and how they pray to God.
Most of these victims - mostly nameless, overwhelmingly faceless, were of one ethnicity and one faith: Shia Hazara. Most of them were killed in one city: Quetta of Pakistan. Most of the attacks were allegedly carried out by: Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni militant group that is vociferous in its anti-Shia declarations and violence against Shias.
This is the story of the Hazara community of Pakistan, whose biographies read of a life spent in fear of their compatriots, living in a stark ghettoisation in their own homeland. Hazaras of Pakistan who are predominately adherent of the Shia faith are no longer looked at for what they are - a peaceful, patriotic, intelligent community of Pakistan. Now they are just victims. Hazaras of Pakistan are persecuted to the extent that they have been given the stamp of pariah-ness in their own country, and despite being Muslim in a Muslim-dominated country, Hazaras live with the insignia of the targeted, an eerie reminder of the Yellow Star the Jewish people were forced to wear in the Nazi-controlled Germany and Europe. There is no end to the agony of the Hazaras as they bury their loved ones, one methodical act of violence after the other.
The government-run National Commission for Human Rights stated that since 2013, 509 members of the Hazara community have been killed. That is 509 human beings killed for nothing, for just being who they are, what they look like.
Limited to two highly secured enclaves on the two sides of Quetta, the 500,000 plus Hazaras of the region feel a sense of claustrophobia as their diurnal routine is marked with the fear of death that lurks outside the security of areas they live in. The killing of nine people between March and April 2018 triggered a massive protest, one of the many the very resilient people of Quetta have staged in the last few years, demanding justice that may never come, or come a tad too late.
The five-day sit-in ended when Chief of Army Staff Qamar Bajwa met the members of the Hazara community, assuring them of justice. "Each and every casualty, including from the Hazara community, is of concern to us and our brave security forces are performing their best and willingly offering monumental sacrifices to bring lasting peace to the country." The statement from the military high command is reassuring but it would only have real significance if things change for the better, if Hazaras stop fearing for their lives.
The face of the five-day protest was the 30-year-old Hazara lawyer activist, Jalila Haider, who went on a four-day hunger strike demanding justice for her community. Speaking to Al-Jazeera, Haider said: "Nothing has been done to rehabilitate us. Our society and culture has been killed, our identity is being erased, and our children have no future."
And all I can do is write. About pain that never ends, about wounds that never heal, about a grave that is dug by a father for his child. As I write these words, haunted by the never-ending mourning of Hazara mothers for their children, Hazara families for their loved ones, the Hazara community for their young and old, there is just one thought. Deeply painful it is to see my fellow Pakistanis protesting for their fundamental right: the right to live.