|
|
Pakistani cabinet ministers yesterday opened negotiations with Shia Muslim protesters who are demanding army protection after a bomb attack that killed 89 people in Quetta.
Saturday’s attack, the second bomb targeting the Shia Hazara minority in five weeks in the southwestern city, has brought hundreds of protesters onto the streets across the country and shut down parts of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.
Shias, who make up around 20% of the mostly Sunni Muslim population of 180mn, are facing record numbers of attacks, raising serious questions about security as nuclear-armed Pakistan prepares to hold elections by mid-May.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) has claimed responsibility for the attacks and Shias are furious that authorities have done nothing to prosecute those responsible.
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf sent ministers to Quetta to negotiate with the protesters and ordered an “immediate launch of a targeted operation” against those responsible, his office said without elaborating.
Local officials in Quetta announced earlier yesterday that security forces had killed four men and arrested seven including an alleged mastermind of Saturday’s bombing in an “ongoing” raid on the edge of the city.
Police said another 172 people had been rounded up in the surrounding province of Baluchistan in the past two days, including the provincial chief of extremist Sunni outfit Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, and they were now being questioned.
Pakistani security forces frequently detain people en masse after major bombings but few if any are ever charged. In 2011 a court released on bail the head of LJ, Malik Ishaq, even though he has been implicated in dozens of murders.
Meanwhile, thousands of Shias called off nationwide protests and agreed to bury the dead from a bomb attack that killed 89 people, after the government promised to arrest those responsible.
But a spokesman for the protesters announced alongside Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira after talks that the protest was over.
“The sit-in protest all over Pakistan is now finished and people should disperse peacefully,” said Allama Amin Shahidi, from the Shia Wahdatul Muslemeen party.
“The government has assured us that they will fulfil all our demands. The governor and the government told us that a targeted operation has begun, which will continue until all the culprits are eliminated.”
The dead are now expected to be buried later on Tuesday or early today.
Kaira promised the operation would “arrest all the culprits and eliminate them” and said a committee would be set up to oversee the protesters’ demands for compensation, protection and jobs for families of the victims.
Quetta is a small town where the military and intelligence agencies have a heavy presence. Rights groups have questioned whether authorities are complicit with extremists or just incompetent. Amnesty International repeated calls for Pakistan to do more to protect Hazaras, describing the failure to bring those responsible to justice as “shocking”.