Print 
PDF
The Governor of Pakistan’s lawless Balochistan province says the Army may be summoned in the provincial capital city, Quetta, after a dramatic escalation in ethnic and sectarian violence, writes Malik Siraj Akbar:
On Saturday, April 14, at least eight members of the minority Hazara community were shot dead in two separate attacks in Quetta. These attacks come immediately after a number of similar attacks in the recent weeks in which the feeble Hazara minority community has been singled out and victimized. ………….
In the midst of all the gloom, some remarkably positive initiatives have been taken by Balochistan’s political forces which provide some hope for a democratic solution to the issue. For instance, the Awami National Party, a Pashtun nationalist group, sent a delegation of its senior leaders in Quetta to meet with the HDP leadership to condole the recent loss of human lives. …. Baloch nationalist groups such as the National Party and the Balochistan National Party (BNP) also fully supported a call for a shutter down strike in Quetta city on Sunday to articulate solidarity with the Hazaras.
What primarily is wrong … is the government’s unwillingness to officially act against underground Islamic terrorist groups in Quetta with the alleged support of the Pakistani intelligence services. With local protests totally failing to guarantee the safety of the Hazaras and the provincial government to crack down on terrorist networks, the international community can play a critical role in taking up the Hazara massacre with Islamabad.
Malik Siraj Akbar is Editor in Chief, The Baloch Hal, and a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, the Washington-based democracy assistance group.
