Hazara United Movement (HUM), United Kingdom

The gruesome targeted killings of two innocent shoe merchants on Fatima Jinnah Road Quetta speak volumes of state’s perpetual security and intelligence failure which have forced the beleaguered Hazaras to venture out of their secluded enclaves at their own risk.

The latest cold-blooded killings of Hazaras have extended the two decade long genocide which are orchestrated and intensified in the wake of vested interests. The so-called “unknowns” successfully spread fear and leave their imprints after every terrorist attack but the state’s security and intelligence operatives continually fail to apprehend them. Worse is the fact that Pakistan’s mainstream electronic and print media outlets skilfully masked these killings with another subsequent bomb blast which killed and injured a score of police officials.

The federal and the provincial governments deliberately ignored the terrorist attack to avoid international backlash.

Ashraf Ghani has upgraded his warmongering tactics to the next level in sheer violation of international covenants and treaties by killing innocents civilians who hail from the decades-old, marginalised and persecuted ethnic Hazaras. The latest waves of these killings have been started in Behsud District and the first phase of arbitrary and inhumane persecution has extended to the suburbs of Bamiyan. The aerial bombardment of civilians in Behsud District and the deployment of heavy contingents of security forces to the outskirts of Bamiyan province display Ghani’s dictatorial and Draconian intention to suppress Hazara population.

Ghani has always supported and provided logistics supports to terrorist organisations to further the hegemonic interests of Pashtun and deepen their strategic depth in and outside Afghanistan. In an effort to gather strategic and financial support for the Pashtun, an adviser of the incumbent Afghan President met with Israel’s proactive radical professor, Hilel Weiss in January 2020 in Dehli India and pleaded for support of Pashtuns. The news was aired by Israel’s reliable TV channel, i24new.

AS the Pashtuns, by and large, profess to be the lost tribes of Israel, therefore, Ashraf Ghani has stepped up all out efforts to materialise the multifaceted long-term gains by suppress other nationalities and ethnicities of Afghanistan as well as amassing financial and strategic support from Israel.

The popular Resistance Movement, which represents all persecuted and under-represented ethnic groups of Afghanistan, has sprung out from the war-stricken and under-privileged lower middle class of the Afghans. They feel compelled to pick up arms and defend themselves in the face of Afghan government’s collaboration with terrorist groups.

Ghani’s aerial and ground bombardments of Hazara civilian population in central Afghanistan are tantamount to war against humanity and the international community should immediately intervene to stop mass execution of innocent people and hold Ashraf Ghani accountable for his heinous crimes.

The first week of 2021 witnessed a gruesome and cowardly terrorist attack on Pakistani Hazaras when more than 11 Hazara coalmine labourers became the latest victims of terrorism. The unfortunate Hazara coalmine workers were singled out from others, blindfolded and their hands were tied behind them and they were slaughtered from their napes. Later, the so-called terrorist organisation Daesh claimed responsibility in an electronic message.
The state-sponsored terrorist attack was staged and completed at Mach on 3 January, 2021. Mach is a small town which is situated in Bolan District of Balochistan province. Mach is about 70 km (44 miles) southeast of Quetta.

The Pakistani Hazaras, although they have been living in the country centuries before the birth of Pakistan, have faced hundreds of terrorist attacks in the forms of suicide bombings and targeted attacks which resulted in the loss of thousands of innocent lives. These orchestrated terrorist attacks have continued since, at least 1999 but the state has hardly exercised its constitutional responsibilities to apprehend the perpetrators, their masterminds, the financiers and their accomplices. Such unreserved apathy of the state’s intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies warrants for crimes against humanity and testifies Pakistan’s state-level complicity with the so-called terrorist organisation.

Fast reverse to the terrorist attack of 28th April 2018, when the international protests from Hazara Diaspora living abroad exerted adequate pressure on the incumbent Army Chief of Pakistan to visit and meet the aggrieved minority group and remedy their grievances; the level and gravity of these terrorist attacks were temporarily halted but the latest terrorist attack overshadows the solemn and religious oath of the incumbent Army Chief who guaranteed to safeguard the lives of Hazaras.

Following the terrorist attack of 28th April 2018, the then Chief Justice of Pakistan took suo moto notice and termed it as Genocide of Hazara ethnicity in an instant court hearing. Unfortunately, the subsequent court hearings by his successor Chiefs Justice of Pakistan have been deliberately placed at a snail’s pace.
This is owing to Pakistan’s Judiciary being massively marred with corrupt judges who only tend to sell out bespoke and tailored judicial decisions to the elite class while the cases of gross human rights violations linger for years without any tangible outcomes.
The latest terrorist attack taking place at Mach, Bolan has triggered a wave of uncertainty and alienation of Hazara support for Pakistan because the rote consolatory statements and shallow reassurances from the top military and civil brass of the country has proved to be superficial and untrustworthy.
Following the Mach terrorist attack, the protesters have staged a sit-in protest in below zero temperature by blocking the western bypass road for all inbound and outbound traffic, demanding from state to end decades’ long killings of innocent people at the hands of their strategic assets. The protesters have thronged to the protest scene in large numbers which include women and children.

Till publishing of this report, Pakistan’s federal and provincial governments had not visited the protesters nor had they contacted them for redressal of their grievances.