Grieving Hazara families to continue protest
QUETTA: Mourners of the Machh massacre refused to end their protest until Prime Minister Imran Khan himself visited them in Quetta.
Thousands of protestors along with the victims’ dead bodies continued their sit-in for the second consecutive day demanding swift actions against the attackers who on Sunday kidnapped and killed 11 coal miners from the Hazara Community.
Interior minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed also visited the grieving families to hold negotiations on PM’s instructions. Rasheed urged the protestors to end their sit-in and assured them of cooperation and justice except accepting their demand of seeking the resignation of the provincial government.
The leaders of the Hazara community, however, decided to continue their protest and also not to bury the victims until the PM visited Quetta.
While talking to the media after negotiating with the representatives of the Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen (MWM), the minister announced that Rs2.5 million would be paid to each victim family as compensation — Rs1.5 million of which would be paid by the Balochistan government. “I feel very sorry over the happening of Mach carnage.” the minister said.
Sheikh Rasheed also asked MWM leaders to form a committee for a meeting with the prime minister in Pakistan.
MWM leader Syed Agha Raza, who organized the protest, put forward a demand that the provincial government should have resigned as it had repeatedly failed to protect the people of Hazara community.
The terrorist group Islamic State has accepted the responsibility of taking 11 innocent lives.
The members of Hazara community have been targeted and persecuted by terrorists groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan because of their Shia beliefs. At least 1,500 Hazaras have been killed in sectarian attacks since the late 1990s, according to figures maintained by a non-profit Hazara organisation.
