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Quetta is the center of Baluchistan, located in a basin and encircled by mountains and regarded as an entry to Afghanistan. Quetta’s residents are from diverse ethnic clusters. The major ethnic groups residing in Quetta are Pashtuns, Balochs, Hazaras and other ethnic groups. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the city hosted a sizeable Afghan refugee population (particularly the Shiite Hazara ethnic group).
The Hazara features in Quetta are specific, as they were in Afghanistan, both by their physical look and religious attachment. The other reason why they are easily recognized is that they live together and are not keen to be integrated with other ethnic groups within the city. As they possess their own colleges, Clinique’s, business centers; so to some extent, they have no connection with other ethnic clusters and live in isolated neighborhoods of the city. The Hazaras in Quetta have formed two different communities; an ostensibly long-lasting older cluster, which has presence there since a long period of time, and a provisional refugee cluster, which is subject to endless change as dwellers come and go. However, after the partition of the Indian sub-continent, Hazaras were given Pakistani nationality but they were not completely settled in Pakistan. They felt they didn’t belong to Pakistan. The Hazaras have consistently in public meetings said that if one day Afghanistan become safe, they would leave Pakistan and go back to their home country Afghanistan. Even the third generation of the Hazaras living in Quetta believes that Quetta is not their home; it is a provisional solution. Plenty of them are departing to Europe, while a number of them are willing to reside in Iran because some of them call themselves Persian.
Thousands of Hazaras have been murdered in directed assaults and shelling in the center of Baluchistan. The indifference towards the massacres has forced this diminishing cluster to take escape routes and gamble between life at the Pledged Land and death at the ocean. Most of the Hazaras are Shiite Muslims. Due to a vast majority of Sunni Muslims in Pakistan, Hazaras have been isolated and victimized because of their beliefs and traditions.
Since 1999, thousands of Hazara people have been massacred and more than 3500 have been wounded in brutal terrorist attacks. Jaish-e-Islam, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), fundamentalist Islamic movements have persistently claimed to have been behind the massacre of Hazara people in Quetta of Baluchistan. Lashkar-e- Jhangvi self-declared to have been behind most of the terrorist assaults in Federal Administrative Tribal Areas (FATA). Lashkar-e- Jhangvi members have stated they are operating in Pakistan in order to eliminate impurities in this country, and that’s why have been repeatedly targeting the Hazara Shiite folks. In 2013, Lashkar-e- Jhangvi distributed threatening letters addressing Hazara people: leave Quetta by the end of the year or face death, Amnesty International has reported the deaths of approximately five hundreds Hazaras in various attacks within Pakistan.
Lashkar-e- Jhangvi has been both against theocratic republic of Iran and Shiite people elsewhere. Lashkar-e- Jhangvi for a long period of time had friendly ties with the Pakistani military establishments which persuaded it in the 1990s to establish deeper ties with extremist Islamic movements fighting in Afghanistan and Kashmir. During the Taliban regime, almost the complete leadership of Lashkar-e- Jhangvi was active in Afghanistan and fought pro-Taliban. When in 1998 the Taliban captured Mazar-e-Sharif, Lashkar-e- Jhangvi alongside with the Taliban massacred thousands of Afghan people from Hazara and other ethnic groups.
However, the extremist groups claim that they target the Hazara people because of religious purposes, there are political motives behind their massacre. When the radical group of Taliban seized Kabul in 1996 and declared their government, plenty of Hazara people stood against the Taliban and declared their support from the Northern Alliance. Accordingly, after 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the Hazara leaders backed the international intervention in Afghanistan which led to oust of Taliban in December of 2001.
The Pakistan government has failed to address this problem since it has been using Lashkar-e- Jhangvi party in its proxy war against India and Afghanistan. When Lashkar-e-Jhangvi joined the TTP, Pakistan government banned Lashkar-e- Jhangvi and two years after it was added to the list of terrorist organization by the United States. Tehrik-e- Taliban Pakistan (the Pakistani Taliban, TTP, is considered potential security threat to Pakistan because it has been behind major attacks on Pakistani state officials, and military establishment. Malik Ishaq is the operational head of Lashkar-e- Jhangvi and has been involved in numerous attacks against Hazara ethnic group. A lot of people including civil society activists filed complained against his brutality but none of them are addressed by the Pakistani judicial organ. Some fighters of the Lashkar-e- Jhangvi have been arrested by the Pakistani government. But after a short period of time they fled or released by paying them bribe.
The Hazara features in Quetta are specific, as they were in Afghanistan, both by their physical look and religious attachment. The other reason why they are easily recognized is that they live together and are not keen to be integrated with other ethnic groups within the city. As they possess their own colleges, Clinique’s, business centers; so to some extent, they have no connection with other ethnic clusters and live in isolated neighborhoods of the city. The Hazaras in Quetta have formed two different communities; an ostensibly long-lasting older cluster, which has presence there since a long period of time, and a provisional refugee cluster, which is subject to endless change as dwellers come and go. However, after the partition of the Indian sub-continent, Hazaras were given Pakistani nationality but they were not completely settled in Pakistan. They felt they didn’t belong to Pakistan. The Hazaras have consistently in public meetings said that if one day Afghanistan become safe, they would leave Pakistan and go back to their home country Afghanistan. Even the third generation of the Hazaras living in Quetta believes that Quetta is not their home; it is a provisional solution. Plenty of them are departing to Europe, while a number of them are willing to reside in Iran because some of them call themselves Persian.
Thousands of Hazaras have been murdered in directed assaults and shelling in the center of Baluchistan. The indifference towards the massacres has forced this diminishing cluster to take escape routes and gamble between life at the Pledged Land and death at the ocean. Most of the Hazaras are Shiite Muslims. Due to a vast majority of Sunni Muslims in Pakistan, Hazaras have been isolated and victimized because of their beliefs and traditions.
Since 1999, thousands of Hazara people have been massacred and more than 3500 have been wounded in brutal terrorist attacks. Jaish-e-Islam, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), fundamentalist Islamic movements have persistently claimed to have been behind the massacre of Hazara people in Quetta of Baluchistan. Lashkar-e- Jhangvi self-declared to have been behind most of the terrorist assaults in Federal Administrative Tribal Areas (FATA). Lashkar-e- Jhangvi members have stated they are operating in Pakistan in order to eliminate impurities in this country, and that’s why have been repeatedly targeting the Hazara Shiite folks. In 2013, Lashkar-e- Jhangvi distributed threatening letters addressing Hazara people: leave Quetta by the end of the year or face death, Amnesty International has reported the deaths of approximately five hundreds Hazaras in various attacks within Pakistan.
Lashkar-e- Jhangvi has been both against theocratic republic of Iran and Shiite people elsewhere. Lashkar-e- Jhangvi for a long period of time had friendly ties with the Pakistani military establishments which persuaded it in the 1990s to establish deeper ties with extremist Islamic movements fighting in Afghanistan and Kashmir. During the Taliban regime, almost the complete leadership of Lashkar-e- Jhangvi was active in Afghanistan and fought pro-Taliban. When in 1998 the Taliban captured Mazar-e-Sharif, Lashkar-e- Jhangvi alongside with the Taliban massacred thousands of Afghan people from Hazara and other ethnic groups.
However, the extremist groups claim that they target the Hazara people because of religious purposes, there are political motives behind their massacre. When the radical group of Taliban seized Kabul in 1996 and declared their government, plenty of Hazara people stood against the Taliban and declared their support from the Northern Alliance. Accordingly, after 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the Hazara leaders backed the international intervention in Afghanistan which led to oust of Taliban in December of 2001.
The Pakistan government has failed to address this problem since it has been using Lashkar-e- Jhangvi party in its proxy war against India and Afghanistan. When Lashkar-e-Jhangvi joined the TTP, Pakistan government banned Lashkar-e- Jhangvi and two years after it was added to the list of terrorist organization by the United States. Tehrik-e- Taliban Pakistan (the Pakistani Taliban, TTP, is considered potential security threat to Pakistan because it has been behind major attacks on Pakistani state officials, and military establishment. Malik Ishaq is the operational head of Lashkar-e- Jhangvi and has been involved in numerous attacks against Hazara ethnic group. A lot of people including civil society activists filed complained against his brutality but none of them are addressed by the Pakistani judicial organ. Some fighters of the Lashkar-e- Jhangvi have been arrested by the Pakistani government. But after a short period of time they fled or released by paying them bribe.