The culture of impunity

Someone has to be held responsible for the brutality unleashed on Shia Hazaras and non-Hazara Shias in Balochistan.

The chief of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Malik Ishaq, should be taken into custody and inquiries conducted about his party’s blatant involvement in the killing of Hazara and other Shias. The law enforcement agencies have to answer about their lax and inefficient security measures that are letting the Hazaras be killed like flies. The Balochistan government owes a response for its failure to ensure the right of life to its people, especially the Shias belonging to the Hazara community. These are the questions that need answering by the self-admitted perpetrators of these atrocities as well as those whose responsibility it is to ensure law and order in the province.

The suicide attack on a bus carrying 50 Shia pilgrims back to their homes in Quetta from Taftan, Iran, on Thursday, resulting in 14 deaths and 30 injured, is one more link in this continuing horror story. It was yet another attack on innocent people, whose only fault was their ethnic identity and religious beliefs. Not so long ago, a school bus was hit by an explosion, killing innocent Shia students. We also had the Mastung bus carnage, not once but twice, when the passengers were lined up and shot at close range in front of their relatives. The killers are not just interested in snuffing out lives but inflicting the worst possible forms of butchery, not sparing even children, as part of their heinous sectarian agenda. Bomb disposal officials seem convinced the 50 kg of explosive material used in the suicide attack on the pilgrims’ bus was meant to create a bigger fallout. The fear factor sought to be created has so far eluded the authorities, who appear to be sitting ducks while ironically pampering the likes of Malik Ishaq, who openly struts his stuff from the platform of the Difa-e-Pakistan Council.

The inept and callously indifferent approach of the authorities to what has now emerged as the latest woe in a long litany of unending sorrows seems doubly tragic when the killers have no qualms in publicly claiming responsibility. It is incomprehensible why the admitted killers and their leaders are left free to wreak their havoc on a peace-loving and inoffensive community. The shameful inaction of the government in exposing and bringing to justice the elements behind the killings reflects its callous lack of seriousness in bringing peace to our terror-stricken society, particularly in Balochistan. Even our society’s well known penchant for conspiracy theories struggles to explain what is going on and why and who is ‘protecting’ these barbarians. According to the new security protocol adopted after the Shia pilgrims’ route to Iran became a killing field, every bus carrying pilgrims is supposed to get security clearance before entering the city. The ill fated bus that exploded in Hazarganji did not follow the protocol. This latest atrocity is a ghastly reminder of how unsafe the Hazara community of Balochistan has been rendered.

The incessant security lapses have come to be seen, especially by Shias, as a systematic genocide of their community. Recently the UN Human Rights head, Navi Pillay, has raised concerns over the gravity of the situation in the province, particularly for the minorities. Some voices on the social media go so far as to accuse the judiciary of suffering from paralysis in bringing the culprits to book following the Lahore High Court’s acquittal of LeJ chief Malik Ishaq. Some others are asking the UN to step in more vigorously. Since 1999, 700 Hazaras have been killed in Balochistan. The incidence of violence against the community has risen sharply, with clear indications of a further intensification in the near future. From 2008 to date, almost 20,000 have left the country for safety abroad. It is time to untangle the venomous web that Ziaul Haq had woven around this country in the misused and abused name of Islam. To go about this tough chore, especially when a large swathe of the country is ensnarled in it, may not be easy. But there is no escape from the task of exposing and bringing to justice the elements making blood cheaper than water.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5C06%5C30%5Cstory_30-6-2012_pg3_1