Azaranica is a non-biased news aggregator on Hazaras. The main aim is to promote understanding and respect for cultural identities by highlighting the realities they face on daily basis...Hazaras have been the victim of active persecution and discrimination and one of the reasons among many has been the lack of information, awareness, and disinformation.

Friday, July 12, 2013

Spare a Thought for the Hazaras of Quetta



Llewelyn Morgan
Posted: 11/07/2013 22:51

A month ago, on June 15th, a bus carrying students home from the Sardar Bahadur Khan Women's University in Quetta, Pakistan, was hit by a female suicide bomber. The bus was destroyed and fourteen passengers left dead; but that wasn't the end of it. The militant group behind the bombing, Lashkar-e Jhangvi (LeJ), then attacked the Bolan Medical Complex, where the injured had been taken and anxious relatives were gathering, killing four nurses, among others. We sometimes need to be reminded how utterly depraved the ideology is that drives jihadist groups like the LeJ. University students are blown up, and a hospital is attacked to intimidate and murder those ministering to the victims.

But who are Lashkar-e Jhangvi's victims? The simple answer is, Muslims from the alternative, Shia tradition of Islam. A brutal campaign targeting the Shia minority in Pakistan has been going on for years, with Sunni militant groups like Lashkar-e Jhangvi declaring the Shia heretics and "deserving of death"; and they have encountered scandalously little opposition from the Pakistani authorities, elements of which are quite clearly complicit with the LeJ's agenda. Extremists of the LeJ's stripe consider fair game anyone who hold beliefs different from their own (Christians, Ahmadi Muslims, etc.), but a particular focus of attacks has been the Hazara community in Quetta, descendants of refugees from Afghanistan who are predominantly Shia, and have distinctive, east-Asian features, making them readily identifiable targets....Continue Reading... 

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