Spike in violence in Quetta must stop

Lahore, 25 April 2018. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has strongly condemned the surge in deadly attacks in Quetta during the current month of April. In yesterday’s incident, six policemen were killed in a suicide attack on a police van, which occurred in tandem with another attack outside a Frontier Corps check-post that left eight personnel injured.

 In a statement issued today, HRCP has taken ‘grave notice of the alarming spike in violence that has shot through Quetta since the beginning of April’, adding that, ‘apart from yesterday’s brazen attack on security forces, members of the Christian and Shia Hazara communities have borne the brunt of a spate of suspected targeted killings.’ On 1 April, a Shia Hazara was killed and another injured when unidentified gunmen opened fire on their car. On 15 April, four Christians travelling in a rickshaw were killed in a firing incident near a church in the city. Three days later, on 18 April, a Shia Hazara shopkeeper was killed in a drive-by shooting, which police suspect was a targeted killing. On 22 April, another two Shia Hazara men were killed and a third injured in a firing incident in Quetta’s Western Bypass area.

HRCP remains ‘extremely concerned over the continuing violence in Quetta—much of which systematically targets members of religious minorities—and the lack of an effective and sustained response from the state.’ According to a recent report issued by the National Commission for Human Rights, 509 members of the Hazara community alone were killed, and 627 injured, in terrorist attacks over the last five years. ‘That the law enforcement agencies responsible for protecting citizens also continue to be targeted, underlines the deeper law and order problem that beleaguers the province.’ The Commission has urged the government to bring the perpetrators of these crimes swiftly to justice and to clamp down visibly on elements bent on fomenting violence against minority communities.

Dr. Mehdi Hasan

Chairperson