Ongoing protests against the recent killing of Hazara Muslims by the IS terrorist group have spread from the southwestern city of Quetta to several other parts of Pakistan.
Police said Thursday that sit-ins had taken place in at least 19 locations in the sprawling southern port city of Karachi.
Flights were delayed as access to the airport in the country’s largest city was affected.
Similar demonstrations were organized in the capital Islamabad and several other major cities across Pakistan.
Since Monday, up to 2,500 protesters have gathered with the bodies in coffins and blocked a highway on the outskirts of Quetta to demand justice.
At least 11 miners were abducted before dawn Sunday near a remote coal mine in the southwestern mountainous region of Mach, 60 kilometers southeast of Quetta city. Some of them were beheaded by the militants.
Hours later, the IS terrorist group claimed responsibility for the massacre. Their gruesome killings near the coal fields where they worked were filmed by the IS terrorists and later posted online.
The Shiite leaders said Tuesday they will not leave the protest site on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, until Prime Minister Imran Khan meets them and the killers are brought to justice.
“We are tired of picking up the dead bodies of our people,” said Syed Agha Raza, a Hazara political leader.
Agha Daud, head of the Balochistan Shiite Conference, expressed concern, noting, “The recent wave of killings will spread to other cities, including Quetta, if decisive action is not taken at this time.”
Masooma Yaqoob Ali, a protester in Quetta, said her older brother was among the dead along with four other relatives. “Now we don’t have a male member [in our family] to take the coffins of our brother and other relatives to the cemetery for burial,” she said.
Prime Minister Khan dispatched three cabinet ministers to try to persuade the protesters in Quetta to disperse, but to no avail.
The Pakistani prime minister said in a tweet that the government was taking steps to prevent such heinous attacks and also called for the burial of the victims.
“I share your pain and have come to you before to stand by you in a time of suffering,” Khan tweeted Wednesday. “I will be back very soon to offer prayers and my personal consolation to all families.”
The leaders of Pakistan’s two main opposition parties, Maryam Nawaz and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, visited Quetta on Thursday.
Hundreds of Hazara have been killed in attacks by militants in Pakistan over the past decade. The attacks have included bombings in schools and crowded markets and brazen ambushes of buses along Pakistani roads.
This was the first major attack on Hazara Muslims since last April, when a bombing killed at least 20 people in a market in Quetta.
Hazara minority Shia Muslims are frequently targeted by terrorists operating in Balochistan.
In 2013, three separate bombings killed more than 200 people in different Hazara neighborhoods. In the 2013 Quetta bombings, sit-ins took place across Pakistan that ended only after the then prime minister met with mourners.
Quetta, the largest city in Balochistan, has seen several bombings and shootings in recent years.
Pakistan’s troubled Balochistan province was rocked by a series of terrorist attacks in late 2016, raising fears of an increasing presence of armed militants in the region, including terrorists linked to the IS terrorist organization.
Separatist militants in the province have also engaged in a decade-long campaign against the central government.
Despite frequent offensives by the Pakistani army, terrorist attacks by militants continue to target security forces and civilians.
Thousands of Pakistanis have died in bombings and other militant attacks since 2001, when Pakistan formed an alliance with the United States in the so-called war on terror.
Thousands more have been displaced by the wave of violence in the country.
by Basit Abbasi – FN