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That the minorities are not safe in Pakistan was underpinned yet again on January 3 when some assailants belonging to Islamic State (IS) brutally killed 11 mine workers belonging to the Shia Hazara community in Balochistan, the region which is already on the boil due to widespread insurgency and violence.
The Hazara community vented out its anger protesting all over the country after the details of the horrific killings emerged soon. The gunmen entered the mineworkers’ residential compound in the Mach coalfield area where they were sleeping. They blindfolded and trussed the workers up before executing them.
The relatives of the murdered workers and the residents of Mach as well kept their coffins on the all-important Western Bypass on the outskirts of Quetta, capital of Balochistan. They refused to bury them until Prime Minister Imran Khan visited them and assuring them protection. The protests spread like wildfire to Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. The protesters blocked several roads disturbing the traffic in a weeklong demonstration.
Imran Khan added more fuel to the fire on January 9 by saying that the protesters could not blackmail him over their demands. His argument was it could become a precedent for anyone to blackmail the PM if he visited the protesters before the assassinated workers are buried.
Finally, the grieving families laid the dead bodies to the rest in the afternoon on January 9 after Khan sent his representatives, the Federal Maritime Minister Ali Zaidi and Zulfi Bukhari, Special Assistant to the PM said around 5,000 people had gathered for the prayers sending a strong signal to Khan on the safety and security of the minorities. Khan visited the families of the slain miners after the burial.
The Hazaras is an ethnic tribe which has been facing attacks from the Sunni supremacists in Pakistan for more than three decades. The statistics with Pakistan Human Rights Commission suggests that around 3,000 Hazaras have been killed in attacks so far. In Karachi alone, at least 50 Hazara doctors have been murdered and hundreds of others were forced to relocate.
Chinese vaccine on Covid-19
The Pakistan government has decided to relax the rules framed by the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority to import the vaccine on Covid-19. This has empowered the government to import a vaccine without inviting a tender. A vaccine could be imported from any one of the six companies registered with the Ministry of National Health Services.
The government might likely import the vaccine from a Chinese company that has completed all the tests before the marketing of the vaccine. Pakistan has reported close to five lakh Covid-19 cases with 10,598 deaths as on January 9. Prime Minister Imran Khan took a review of the situation to decide whether educational institutes could be reopened in case the situation normalises. The decision, however, was deferred.
Death for blasphemy on social media
The Anti-Terrorism Court in Capital Islamabad on January 8 sentenced to death three men for posting blasphemous content on social media. The case was pending for four years. It is second of its kind of punishment in Pakistan. The trial in this case was completed last year. On December 15 last year the court had announced to reserve its verdict.
Blasphemy has been a controversial subject in Pakistan since then military dictator General Zia-Ul-Haq introduced the blasphemy law in the 1980s. The rights advocates have been demanding reforms in the law for a long time. The first case of death over blasphemy on social media was reported in 2017.
