Sectarian atrocity: 29 killed in Mastung, Quetta ambushes

[pak-marine]

Sectarian atrocity: 29 killed in Mastung, Quetta ambushes

By Shehzad Baloch
Published: September 20, 2011



QUETTA:

The Shia community in Balochistan came under intense attack on Tuesday when 29 people were killed in two separate, targeted incidents claimed by banned militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

At least 26 people were killed and six others injured in Ganjidori area of Mastung, about 30 kilometres southeast of Quetta, when a group of armed men attacked a passenger bus carrying Shia pilgrims from Quetta to Iran.
Hours later, three more people, hailing from the Hazara community, were gunned down near Akhtarabad area of Quetta as their rescue team made its way to the site of the bus attack. Two others were also shot.
Balochistan Home Secretary Naseebullah Bazai called the bus attack an incident of sectarian violence but said that there had been no security lapse. “We usually provide security cover to pilgrims as they are vulnerable to target killings but we had no prior information on this journey,” he said.
Passenger bus attack
Forty-five passengers were on board the bus, most of them Shia, which was on its way to the town of Taftan that borders Iran, according to Mastung Assistant Commissioner Shahnawaz Nosherwani. He also confirmed the casualties and injuries.
“The bus was intercepted and attacked using sophisticated weapons and rocket launchers,” said driver Khushal Khan, who escaped the attack unhurt. “The attackers asked passengers to step out of the bus and shot them after identifying them as Shias. They continued firing for about 10 minutes and managed to escape in their two vehicles.”
Five others who managed to escape the attack were taken to hospital in Mastung and provided security. “As firing began, people started running like headless chickens,” Rajab Ali, a survivor, told The Express Tribune, at the District Headquarters Hospital in Quetta. “One of the assailants was filming the incident.”
Bodies and the injured lay on the crime scene for over an hour, after which people started a rescue operation on their own.
Balochistan Levies, police and rescue workers reached the spot an hour later and cordoned off the highway where the bus was attacked. The bodies and injured were taken to Bolan Medical Complex (BMC) and DHQ Hospital, Quetta. Those critically injured were sent to Combined Military Hospital (CMH).
Bodies were handed over to heirs after autopsies. Victims were shot in the head, chest and abdomen, doctors said.
Rescue team attack
A senior police official said that the victims were travelling in a private car when the attackers, riding a motorcycle, opened fire at them. The bodies and injured were taken to BMC.
People from the Shia community gathered outside the BMC and staged a protest. A three-day mourning has also been announced.
(Read: Death and joy)
This is the second major attack this month targeting the Shia community in Balochistan. At least 12 people, including women and children, were killed in a suicide attack at an Eid congregation on the first day of Eidul Fitr.
According to official sources, as many as 230 people from the Shia community have been killed since 2007 in sectarian targeted killings in Balochistan. Even police officials who have chased sectarian militants have been targeted.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 21st, 2011.

 

[pak-marine]

Cowards from Lashkar e Jhangvi have claimed responsibility of execution

 

[Roybot]

Why are Hazaras hated by other ethnic groups? Be it in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Whats the go?

 

[hembo]

21 September 2011 Last updated at 07:11 GMT
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi 'carried out' Pakistan attacks


The Pakistani sectarian group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, has said it was behind Tuesday's gun attacks in western Pakistan in which 29 people were killed.

Gunmen first stopped a bus and killed 26 Shia pilgrims travelling through Mastung in Balochistan province.

The Shia community has in recent years been subjected to numerous attacks

They later attacked an ambulance that was carrying people injured in that attack, killing three more people.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was banned in 2001 for fanning sectarian violence.

A predominantly Punjabi group with links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, it is also linked with the 2002 murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl and other militant attacks, particularly in the southern city of Karachi.

The ethnic Hazara Shia community which was targeted in these attacks has announced a three-day mourning in the region.

Reports from the provincial capital, Quetta, say the atmosphere is gloomy on Wednesday morning and most markets are shut.

Meanwhile, in night-long raids, the police have rounded up more than 200 suspects, most of them Afghan nationals living in and around Quetta.

Sunni and Shia extremists have frequently clashed and launched attacks on each other over the past 20 years.

Tuesday's attack was the deadliest against Shias in Pakistan since a suicide bomber killed at least 57 people at a Shia rally in Quetta in September 2010.

Shia Muslims are a minority in Pakistan. They are mostly ethnic Hazaras and say that nearly 600 of their community have been killed in sectarian attacks since 2002.

At least 13 people were killed when a suicide bomber struck in the car park of a Shia mosque in Quetta Eid festival at the end of last month.

 

[Major Shaitan Singh]

Unidentified gunmen have opened fire on a bus travelling through southwest Pakistan, killing at least 25 Shia pilgrims aboard, officials have said.

The bus, which was on its way to the Iranian-Pakistani border, was attacked 30km away from the city of Quetta, located near the border with Afghanistan, Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder reported from the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

Hyder said police authorities and district officials had reported that "the bus came under attack by unidentified attackers riding motorcycles, who riddled the vehicle with bullets".

The pilgrims were passing through the Mastung district in Baluchistan province, of which Quetta is the capital, when the attack occurred, local officials said.

About 40 pilgrims were riding on the bus and more than a dozen were wounded, Dadullah Baluch, a local tribal policeman, told the AP news agency.



A pickup truck blocked the vehicle's path, and a group of at least eight men carrying rockets and guns forced the passengers off, Khushhal Khan, the bus driver, said.

"They were eight to 10 men and they were carrying rocket launchers and Kalashnikovs," Khan said.

The passengers tried to run, but the gunmen opened fire, he said, after which they sped off in the truck.

The wounded laid on the ground for nearly an hour before rescue workers arrived, the driver said.

No group has claimed responsibilty for the attacks.

Sunni fighters have stepped up attacks against Shias in Baluchistan in recent months.

Ethnic Baluch fighters have been waging a low-level campaign in Baluchistan for years for more autonomy and greater control over natural resources of the region.

Officials have said there is no evidence linking them with Islamists.

Pakistan has seen a surge in violence since al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces in a secret raid in a Pakistani town in May.

Most recently, at least 10 Shias were killed in a suicide bombing near Quetta on the Muslim festival of Eid on August 31.

 

[somebozo]

The animosity towards Hazara has to do with regional and tribal inter-conflicts and nothing to do with Shia. A hazara is going to look mongoliod regardless of their religion and some people trying to give it sectarian colors are not serving the purpose.

 

[Ahmad]

No group has claimed responsibilty for the attacks.

These guys only accept responsibilty if they kill security personell and soldiers.

 

[Ahmad]

i think we already got a thread for this.

 

[pak-marine]

Why are Hazaras hated by other ethnic groups? Be it in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Whats the go?

Its not ethnic hazaras are shias thats why the slaughter by holy mujahideen of LEJ

 

[Ahmad]

Its not ethnic hazaras are shias thats why the slaughter by holy mujahideen of LEJ

That is right, we cant say they are hated by every ethinc group, but because the poor guys are Shias, they are hated by all great Mujahideen, not just Lej.

 

[Observer7]

Whats happening in Pakistan. Muslims killing Muslims. . Looks like the objective of extremist have changed from Jihad to Ethnic cleansing. Every day one could hear people getting killed by militants. What are the militants upto. Are they wanting to make Pakistan to Stone Age....This is all the consequences of converting the country from secularism ideology to Religious radicalization.

 

[DelhiDareDevil]

RIP.

None of us here know the full story on whats happening there in Pakistan, all we can do is speculate.

 

[DV RULES]

This terrorists act very similar to Killing of Pakistani border forces soldiers by TTP/Afghan militants in Kunar when they released video. In previous day there were reports from Pakistan intelligence agencies that TTP is planning to start another series of terrorist’s acts and government of KP made all necessary steps to counter it. They found security lap in Baluchistan for their inhuman acts, now its responsibility of federal IM & provincial body to tighten security in Baluchistan. Claim from LEJ could be mask but behind faces could be same. Tactics to bring Pakistan under pressure with such inhuman acts used by a country supporting these terrorists should be answer through international diplomatic channel with evidences.

Border security along Baluchistan should be beefed up because from chitral to South Waziristan border mainly under regular army control and now these terrorists can make attempts through Baluchistan where they can find support from BLA.

 

[RockyX]

29 Shia pilgrims slain in Mastung

-Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claims responsibility, says it has accepted Karachi police official’s challenge
-Balochistan Shia Ulema Council announces weeklong mourning

QUETTA - At least 29 people were killed and another seven injured when unidentified armed men opened fire on Shia pilgrims travelling to Iran on Tuesday. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the attack, saying such attacks would continue. The gunmen ordered pilgrims off their bus, lined them up and assassinated them in a hail of gunfire in Mastung, a district 50 kilometres south of Quetta.

The bus driver, Khushal, told reporters that armed men riding in two vehicles intercepted the bus near Ghunja Doori area in Mastung and asked the passengers to get off, adding that after lining them up, the assailants opened indiscriminate fire. Some of the passengers saved their lives by running away while the attackers reloaded their automatic rifles, he said, adding however that they did not harm the driver and cleaner and asked them to stay away.
Twenty of the passengers died on the spot while another 12 were seriously injured. Six of the injured later succumbed to their injuries at the district headquarter hospital. “The attackers then fled in their vehicles,” he said. An hour after the first attack, a group of relatives of the Ghunja Doori victims were attacked in the Akhtarabad area, in the outskirts of Quetta, when they were on their way to the scene of the killing. Two of them died instantly while two others were injured.

One of the injured later succumbed to his injuries in Bolan Medical Complex Hospital. Home and Tribal Affairs Secretary Naseebullah Bazai said the government normally provided security to pilgrims, but unfortunately the pilgrims and Shia organisations had not informed the Home Office about their movement. Mastung Deputy Commissioner Saeed Umran told Pakistan Today that the attackers were following the pilgrims’ bus from the outskirts of Quetta.

Meanwhile, Ali Sher Haideri, purported spokesman of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, called a number of newspapers and news agencies’ offices and claimed responsibility for the attack. He claimed that LJ activists would continue such attacks against the Shia community and threatened transporters and administration officials against providing services to the community. He said the LJ had accepted Karachi police official Chaudhry Aslam’s challenge and would “teach him a lesson”.

The members of Shia community staged a rally in Quetta to register their protest against the killings. The Balochistan Shia Ulema Council announced a weeklong mourning and demanded the government arrest the culprits. The Hazara Democratic Party and the Etahad Benul Muslimeen Balochistan also condemned the attacks and criticised the government for failing in its responsibility to protect the life and property of the citizens.

Several Shia organisations also announced a shutter-down strike today (Wednesday).

29 Shia pilgrims slain in Mastung | Pakistan Today | Latest news, Breaking news, Pakistan News, World news, business, sport and multimedia

 

[Irfan Baloch]

That is right, we cant say they are hated by every ethinc group, but because the poor guys are Shias, they are hated by all great Mujahideen, not just Lej.

Imran Khan and Jamat Islami want the old times returned when Laskher Jhangvi and TTP were only killing Shias, and blame the Pakistani War on Terror that the poor majority Sunnis are also being killed by the Claimants of heaven & Hell.
I can tell which posters here will be loving this story but will complain if dead were Sunnis. I wonder with what face we are then commending Israeli and Indian forces for their brutalities if we our self are so much bigoted and intolerant.

It’s a shame that even our sympathies are conditional. Reminds me of the time when Ahmedis were mercilessly killed in their mosques and people were debating their faith instead of condemning the barbaric and violent deaths,.

In the eyes of the radicalised society that follows the likes of Jamat Islami and Lal masjid and consider Taliban as holy warriors, as long as the dead are only the religious or sectarian minorities its all good and business as usual. But it’s a rel shame for them when their own holy brothers don’t discriminate and for a change of taste kill sunnis too.

These murderous thugs have been dropping the hints for a long time that they don’t care who they kill and they are previously and morally bankrupt but when we have rightwing media and leaders like SanahUllah who panics even at the mention of Sipah Sahaba for the fear of loosing his vote bank then what hope can any peace loving person have?

Just keep quiet and wait till the same murderers will be bombing a Sunni mosque or gunning down school children again. We can have everyone else to blame don’t we? As long as we are willing to shelter them and find excuses for their actions they will continue their show

So enjoy my dear fellow countrymen. Condemn your army which is to be blamed for the indiscriminate killing of the civilians by the TTP and its sister organisations. Although these organisations should be only killing shias, ahmedis and Christians and bring peace to the majority of people.