Lashkar-e-Jhangvi threatens Imran Khan
In a dramatic departure from his silence on genocide of Shia Muslims at the hands of banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ, currently operating as Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat ASWJ), Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Friday (30 June 2012) termed the barbaric incident of Quetta (attack on Shia pilgrims bus) as part of the systematic wave of violent attacks against the Hazara community, and demanded stern action against the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
(While Imran Khan still stopped short of acknowledging that massacre of Shia Hazaras is a part of the larger Shia genocide taking place in all parts of Pakistan at the hands of the LeJ-ASWJ and Taliban, his clear reference to the LeJ and its condemnation is a positive development and one can hope he will soon realize the bigger picture and condemn the Pakistan wide Shia genocide which is not confined to a specific ethnicity or area.)
In his statement, Imran Khan strongly condemned attack on a Quetta bound bus carrying Shia pilgrims from Iran, which led to loss of 13 innocent lives. Terming the attack barbaric, Imran Khan said that the incident is part of the systematic wave of violent attacks against the Hazara community. Atleast 60 people belonging to the Hazara community have been brutally killed during the past six months. Imran Khan stated that there could be serious repercussions if the dangerous trend of increasing frequency and intensity of violent attacks against the Hazara Community is not reversed. The security situation of Balochistan is extremely uncertain and continued attacks against a particular community can push the province into a state of complete chaos. Constant failure to ensure security of the Hazara community despite loss of so many innocent lives is criminal negligence on part of the government. The situation demands the government to undertake emergency measures to stop violent attacks against the community, he added.
Imran Khan demanded stern action against the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has openly claimed responsibility of this barbaric attack. The PTI Chairman expressed complete solidarity with the Hazara community and conveyed deepest condolences to the bereaved families.
Imran Khan’s statement has been appreciated by Pakistanis of all ethnic and religious backgrounds who want to see an end to the ongoing acts of violence by the LeJ-AsWJ.
What is, however, worrying is a threatening message that was noticed on Twitter on 30 June 2012 in the aftermath of Imran Khan’s condemnation of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. One person namely Raja Huzaifa posted the following insulting and threatening message:
oye kanjar lashkar-e-jhangvi ke khilaf baqwas ki to qatal kar dain gaye. NEXT TIME SHIA HAZARA KE HAQ MAIN BAAT KI TO OFFICE MAIN AA KAR GOLI MARAIN GAYE TUJHE.
Loose translation: Rascal, if you barked against Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, we will kill you. Next time if you spoke in support of Shia Hazara, we will come to your office and shoot you.
While the threat is not particularly directed against Imran Khan, it’s obvious that Imran Khan is the only notable leader who has taken a bold, commendable stance against the murderous LeJ in the last few days. (We have not yet seen such bold statement by any other leader including Asif Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, Asfandyar Wali Khan etc.)
We pray for Imran Khan’s safety and long life, and urge Pakistan’s federal and provincial governments as well as army to take all necessary measures to protect him from those who might be upset due to his bold statement.
That’s my leader. May Allah protect him from enemies of Pakistan LeJ/ASWJ, TTP etc
Finally LUBP realized that while Zardari, Sharif etc are silent, there is only one man who has the courage to call a spade a spade, Sir Imran Khan.
There is at least one politician is concerned about the genocide of poor hazarawals.
Imran Khan Zindabaad
Imran Khan can’t simply rely on a government which cannot protect its own Governor and Ministers.
PTI must make foolproof security arrangements for his life. He is precious for Pakistan and his own party.
Down with LeJ/ASWJ terrorists.
Will all Imran bashers come to his support when he is being threatened by enemies of Pakistan?
@AS Khan
Chickens as they say come home to roost. No surprise here.
Terming the incident barbaric and crucify, Imran Khan, the cricketer-turned-politician, has strongly condemned attack on a bus carrying Shia-pilgrims from Iran to Quetta which led to loss of 15 innocent lives.
In his view, the attack was part of a systematic wave of violent incident against Hazara community whose 60 people have been brutally killed during past six months.
He tweeted, “We condemn the terrorist attack on pilgrims’ bus in Quetta. Our prayers go out to all the families of the victims & for recovery of injured”.
The Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was of the opinion that there could be serious repercussions if dangerous trend of increasing frequency and intensity of violent attacks against Hazara Community is not reversed in the country.
“I condemn the rising tide of sectarian killings in Balochistan and the shameful failure of the government to assert its writ in the province”, he added.
Commenting on the law and order situation in Balochistan, Khan said the security situation in the province was extremely uncertain and continued attacks against a particular community would further push the region into state of a complete chaos and disorder.
Despite loss of so many innocent lives, constant failure to ensure the safety of Hazara community is criminal negligence on part of the present government and law enforcement agencies.
He was of the opinion that the situation demands government to undertake emergency measures to stop violent attacks against a specific sect of people.
Imran Khan made a demand to the government and concerned authorities to take stern action against banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) which openly claimed responsibility of this barbaric attack.
http://www.newspakistan.pk/2012/06/30/imran-khan-speaks-hazara%E2%80%99s-genocide/
THE story is not new. But with each attack, the targeting of the Shia Muslms in geneal, Shi Hazara community in particular, becomes a more firmly entrenched feature of life in Balochistan today. Thursday’s bomb attack on a bus of Shia pilgrims returning from Iran was only the latest in a string of incidents that have taken the lives of at least 60 Shia Hazaras and a dozen non-Hazara Shias this year alone, including students and people from the community simply going about their daily business.
Easily identifiable because of their physical features, neighbourhoods and the routes they take for routine pilgrimages, Balochistan’s Hazaras are now sitting ducks, victims of a relentless campaign that can only be compared to ethnic cleansing in its laser-like focus and its desire to kill as many members of the community as possible.
Given this focus and the pattern of attacks that has been established, the inability of the Balochistan government and paramilitary troops to protect the community can only be the result of extreme incompetence or a lack of commitment. Many of the attacks take place along the set routes that buses take when transporting pilgrims to and from Iran. Policing along these routes has reportedly been stepped up, but surely they can be monitored in a way that is better able to identify suspicious activity or prevent attackers from planting bombs. As for police escorts to accompany pilgrims, these have clearly not been adequate; if Balochistan’s politicians can be provided with extensive and expensive security arrangements, why is the same level of protection not being provided at least to Shia pilgrims?
The more effective method, of course, would be to tackle this problem at its roots, going after the militants and dismantling their infrastructure rather than trying to prevent already planned attacks at the eleventh hour. Balochistan’s anti-Shia militancy has morphed into a force in its own right, with its own motivations, operational bases and centres of propaganda. For this, too, there are clues: the locations of madressahs propagating anti-Shia views and some of the bases of the Balochistan arm of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi have been identified, and include the chief minister’s own base of Mastung. In the face of such a predictable pattern of attacks and available information about those behind them, the failure to prevent them has only fuelled speculation that Balochistan’s civilian and security establishments are deliberately not taking action against sectarian militancy. These theories reflect the lack of trust in the provincial set-up, which is seen as being focused on clamping down on separatists instead. Whatever the thinking among state actors, the continued targeting of the Hazaras is increasingly becoming a massive abdication of responsibility on their part.
Dawn Editorial, 30 June 2012
While there is little doubt that all the attacks have been unprovoked and unidirectional without any apprehensions for many years, for Shias of Balochistan, particularly for Shia Hazaras, the failure of security forces to protect their community remains an unanswered question.
“They have not failed. They have rather no intentions to protect us from the terrorists” explains Sardar Saadat Ali Hazara, a community leader.
Members of the community allege that Shia Hazara killings are designed as a counterinsurgency campaign to divert attention away from the activities of security forces in Balochistan.
“The Hazaras are being systematically killed because they are anti-Taliban and because they do not agree with the policy of strategic depth towards Afghanistan,” says Tahir Khan Hazara, a political activist.
“They consider the Hazaras as pro-Northern Alliance and suspect our patriotism,” says Zaman Dehqanzada Hazara.
Dehqanzada alleges that his community’s ‘refusal to fight the Baloch’ has led them to become targets of unabated violence. “We are not going to destroy our relations with our brothers in Balochistan,” he adds.
Meanwhile, a former chief sectary Balochistan revealed on the condition of anonymity that the state policy towards the Hazaras has dramatically changed since 2001. “They are kept away from sensitive administrative posts both in the armed forces and civil bureaucracy as they are considered, albeit falsely, pro-Iran and Pro-Northern Alliance just because they are Farsi-speaking Shias,” the official said.
According to a recent report on the killings of Shia Hazaras http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2012/0619/Pakistan-bombing-hints-at-free-rein-for-radicals-in-Quetta , the Frontier Corps (FC) believes that “the Hazaras are receiving funding from Iran to incite Shia revolution in Pakistan,” a statement refuted by the community. How can a small community, they say, surrounded by military cantonment bring about Shia revolution in Pakistan?
We have repeatedly demanded targeted actions against Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, who are a handful of terrorists but the government and security forces have given us a cold shoulder.
While the FC also blames the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) for the Hazara killings. Hazara leader Sardar Saadat strongly disagrees. “BLA has no issues with the Hazaras. It is, in fact, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi operatives who kill the members of my community and roam freely all around. Everybody knows that they are being trained and protected in Qubo area of Mastung,” he says.
Balochistan Home Minister Zafarullah Zehri has said on the floor of the provincial assembly that he had clues about those involved in the target killings but he was helpless. So we were forced to call international protests against Hazara genocide in order to pressurise the government to take actions”
Both Hazara and non-Hazara Shias are being killed by LeJ-Taliban terrorists in Quetta and wider Balochistan.
All the secular nationalist parties of Balochistan are of the view that religious extremism is thriving in the province in order to counter the activism of the Baloch nationalists. The nature of killings, they say, also indicates the same. Almost all the attacks on Hazaras have either taken place in the vicinity or in between two FC check posts – raising questions over the ability of heavily armed men to cross the check-posts, kill innocent civilians and escape on their pick-up vehicles without being caught or chased after.
“If you look at the videos of the Mastung and Akhtarabad massacres released by the terrorists on YouTube, you will find out that all these incidents have taken place on an international highway, bustling with traffic but the terrorists seem in no haste as they slaughter our people. It takes them almost half an hour to accomplish their mission and not a single vehicle passes the site of the attack. How was the traffic blocked on both sides?” asks a Hazara activist, who wishes to remain anonymous for security reasons.
Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) issued a statement on its website http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-124-2011/ a day after the Mastung massacre under the title of “Members of Shia community were under attack while the military forces look on” questioning the role of military establishment in such attacks. According to AHRC “more than 500 Shias have been killed in terrorist attacks during the past three years after the FC received the powers of the police”
It further adds: “These campaigns against the Shia religious community is very well known to police, FC, the army and its intelligence services but no action has been taken against the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi.”
According to columnist, Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad, “Attacks on the Hazara community started only two years after former president and army chief General Pervez Musharraf’s coup. These coincided with the period when agencies were directed under a master plan to give religious parties and militant groups a free hand.”
In an open threat letter distributed at Shia localities in Quetta Lashkar-i-Jhangvi warned the Shias particularly Shia Hazaras to leave Pakistan by 2012 and in another, they vowed to continue targeting the community in Pakistan, particularly in Quetta.
The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, whose multiple-homicide leader was released this year from a prison in Lahore has killed another 14 Hazara Shia citizens in a bus carrying 50 passengers on its way from Taftan, a border town between Iran and Pakistan. This is the third time since last year that Shia pilgrims to Iran have been killed, to say nothing of the random extermination of the community that began in the 1990s, when the Shias of Quetta including both Hazara and non-Hazara Shias started being targeted by terrorists affiliated with the al Qaeda. This has gone on in parallel with attacks on the Shia community in the Kurram Agency, Gilgit-Baltistan and some cities of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa bordering Fata.
Adding to the shame for Pakistan, a large number of Pakistanis have added themselves to the ‘boat people’ of Southeast Asia, trying to enter Australia illegally. A boat capsize has taken the lives of scores of them, all hailing from the areas that have been subjected to sectarian strife where Shias have been targeted. A bulk of them belonged to Kurram Agency (and also Quetta) because Pakistani routes were closed to them and they couldn’t go home from Peshawar if they wanted to. The scourge of al Qaeda and its henchmen, funded by private citizens from Arab states, has decided to put to an end to a community that the state of Pakistan cannot protect.
Hazara websites tell the gory tale and appeal to the state to protect the community. Every month, a shocking 60 Hazaras are killed in Quetta, which has the dubious reputation of being home to the infamous Quetta Shura of Mullah Omar. Quetta has a sizeable population of widows and orphans telling the sorry tale of Islamabad’s distraction with enemies it can’t defeat, its military commentators and retired diplomats daily telling the nation how to stand up to the anti-Pakistan triad of America, India and Israel. Over the last half-decade, 50,000 Hazaras have left Balochistan for other countries, some of them dying on the way.
The Baloch in Balochistan are up in arms in revenge for their ‘disappeared’ relatives and are taking it out on innocent non-Baloch inhabitants through their rebel groups, blowing up pipelines and killing people inside Quetta to remind Islamabad that it is off-target when it says India is doing it; and the army is wrongly focused when it goes after terrorists calling them Indian and American agents. The al Qaeda enjoys the direct allegiance of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Jandullah and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Indirectly, it enjoys a meeting of the minds with the organisations busy agitating against America in the shape of the Difa-e-Pakistan Council. The nation does not know what is going on because of the ‘linguistic divide’ in the media: the Urdu media has still to recognise basic facts and will not name terrorist organisations, while TV anchors shrink from the truth for fear of being killed.
All these killers will be needed soon in Afghanistan when the next war for ‘strategic depth’ is fought. Because they are the jihadis that will fight for Pakistan, they are allowed the franchise in Pakistan of exterminating their ideological enemies. The Pakistani state doesn’t seem care if Christians are targeted through the blasphemy law and if the Ahmadi community is persecuted against. It is still somewhat upset over what is happening to the Shia community. But the grooves of habit formed by the impunity of persecution of the other minority communities are fast paving the way for the next bloodletting.
The Pakistani state faces defeat if it fights the next war in Afghanistan through its non-state actors. It is a grave blunder to let these non-state actors go about their killing ways as a kind of dishonourable price for defeating another superpower in Afghanistan. This time, these non-state actors are going to face another kind of Afghanistan, better equipped to fight our marauders. Pakistan should brace itself for the flood of Pakhtun-Afghan refugees after 2014, and should remember that every time we try to win victories in Afghanistan, half the Pakhtun nation of that country arrives in Pakistan as refugees. The war to fight is the war inside Pakistan — with the help of the outside world we are being taught to hate.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 30th, 2012.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/401144/another-sectarian-massacre/
Imran Khan surprises me all the time. I wasn’t expecting that kind of reaction from him if at all. Now is the time other leaders also spoke and specially PPP leaders who need to take serious action against ongoing Shia genocide in the whole country in general and of the Hazaras in particular.
This is not the first time imran khan has spoken for hazara brothers he did it a month ago in a big jalsa somewhere in punjab aswell. He was labelled as anti shia by LUBP just b’cause of ASWJ flags were seen in a couple of his rallies. Now that same LUBP is praising imran, isko kehte hen thook k chatna, keep up.
It is good that anyone except ppp, MQM and anp another party’ s leader condemned the killings of our shia brothers. As a sunny , I have lot difference with the Shia people but when I see their massacre , I do not like it . Why in Pakistan, there is lot of terrorism, because some leaders like Nawaz sharif and Imran khan did not show their strong stance about these enemies of the country. Because as a nation, we are not united against the terrorism and instead of supporting our army ; some apolitical parties and media persons are supporting these enemies of Pakistan. I hope as a nation if we get united, then we will be able to defeat the terrorism.
This Raja Huzaifa looks like a mummy daddy dudh peenay wala pheena. Iss kay sir par do thappar mar lo, sidha ho jai ga.
Test
Next time, please search Twitter before posting such stuff. In your screenshot, why isn’t Raja Huzaifas twitter handle visible?
Here’s link from Twitter:
https://twitter.com/MansoorGeoNews/status/219051316935262208/photo/1/large
Mansoor Ali Khan of Geo News too noticed a similar message:
https://twitter.com/MansoorGeoNews/status/219051316935262208/photo/1
humm tamam shia sunni bhaiyon ko aik hona hai layken yeh dhusman jo takfeeri hain shia ko kafir or sunni ko bhe kafir samjhty sirf qatel karna inka mazhib bachon ko or aourton ko,hum sub ko milna ho ga taa ky iss mulk dhushman ky chehray say parda hata sakayin
Thank you for existence Imran Khan!. Apparently you are the only one sided along with the targeted shia/hazara community.
Imran and LJ are no different
MY NAME IS RAJA HUZAIFA.AND I HAVE THREATENED.my id is this on twitter. http://www.twitter.com/rajahuzaifa97
Come on he can’t do anything on twitter lol ..
SOON SHIAS WILL BE HIT BY A BLAST IN PAKSITAN. LASHKAR E JHANGVI ZINDA BAAD. MALIK ISHAQ ZINDA BAAD. PAK ARMY ZINDA BAAD. ISI ZINDA BAAD.
RANA SANAULLAH ZINDA BAAD. PUNJAB GOVERNMENT ZINDA BAAD. WE LOVE OUR PAK ARMY AND ISI. LASHKAR E JHANGVI,S FIGHT IS AGAINST SHIAS NOT WITH PAK ARMY. THAT,S WHY ARMY IS NOT TAKING ACTION AGAINST US.
BAGHO SHIAO TUMARI MOUT I LASHKAR E JHANGVI I LASHKAR E JHANGVI I. PEHLE GOLI BAAD MAIN BAAT LASHKAR E JHANGVI ZINDA BAAD.
WE WARN SHIA HAZARAS TO LEAVE PAKISTAN TILL 2012.OTHERWHISE READY FOR HOLY WAR. SOON WE WILL LAUNCH A HOLY WAR AGAINST SHIAS IN QUETTA.
Hey RAJA HUZAIFA jis din hamain hamare IMAM E ZAMANA AJT ne pardaye gaibat utha ke hamain hukme jihaad de dya na to tum lantioon ka wahi haal karien gein jo MOULA E KAINAT ALI IBNE ABU TALIB A.S ne KHYBER main kya thaaa. DARO us waqt se YAZEED ke najaiz OLADOON daro us waqt se or apne ANJAAM se
When all the political parties are hand and glove with these millitent extremist so-called religious sections.
Leaders are ever affectionate to public and they want to take steps for their protection and welfare.
At present there is only one who has all the qualities of being a good, God-fearing, loving, bold, decision maker, well educated, having the feelings for public.
He is no other than IMRAN KHAN.
what a stupidity, the young man does not represent Lej at all.