Hazaras, a Very Distinctive Ethnic Tribe, With Mongoloid Features - Are Under Attack from Sunni Supremacists in Pakistan
The
Print Team
11 January,
2021
Zaki-ur-Rehman
Lakhvi, mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and a Lashkar-e-Taiba
(LeT) operations commander, was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment by a
Pakistani anti-terrorism court Friday. A warrant was also issued for the arrest
of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar.
Hazaras protest in Quetta | Via Twitter/@RiazToori
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The Hazara
tribe of Pakistan, meanwhile, has been protesting against the massacre of 11
coal miners in Machh, Balochistan last week, for which the Islamic State has
claimed responsibility.
In episode
657 of ‘Cut The Clutter’, ThePrint’s Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta focuses on
the hardest-hit and most oppressed victims of terror activities in Pakistan and
Afghanistan, and how sectarianism and ethnicity have become their mortal
enemies.
Many
Hazaras have refused to bury the bodies of victims killed in Machh till Prime
Minister Imran Khan visits them and guarantees punishment for the guilty. Khan
had asked them to bury the bodies first. Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal
had visited Machh but the people refused to bury the bodies.
In 1985,
during the time of General Zia-ul-Haq, a new Sunni right-wing Deobandi
supremacist organisation was set up — Anjuman Sipah-e-Sahaba ( soldiers of the
Prophet), which later changed its name to Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) to get
a better acronym for itself. In due course of time, the organisation was banned
as it had begun attacking people — mostly those Muslims who they considered
apostates, the Shias and Ahmadiyyas. And Hazaras are predominantly Shia
Muslims.
The
organisation later had an offshoot — the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, led by Riaz Basra,
that carried out many assassinations in Pakistan and attacked Iranian cadets
who were studying at the Pakistan Air Force academy. Basra was later killed in
an encounter. In 2007, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was held responsible for the
assasination of Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
In 2009, it
was also held responsible for the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. “They
are now widely suspected to have carried out this latest massacre (of 11 coal
miners in Machh),” Gupta said.
SSP was
reborn as Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) and started associating with the
Tehrik-i-Taliban in Pakistan too. In 2011, the outfit sent an open letter to
the Hazaras in Balochistan, saying all Shias are not Muslims and therefore
worthy of being killed. “After this there were many rounds of massacres,” Gupta
said.
Data from
the Pakistan Human Rights Commission and other reports have suggested that
almost 3,000 Hazaras have been killed in bombings, car bombings and suicide
attacks so far. Nearly 50 Hazara doctors in Karachi have been assassinated, and
hundreds of them forced to leave Pakistan. In 2013, nearly 700 Shias were
killed.
In a
suicide and car bombing attack in January 2013, 91 people died. A February
bombing the same year killed 110 Hazaras. In March, two bombs went off at a
Shia mosque in Karachi, killing more than 50. In June again, there was another
attack in a town with a predominantly Hazara population. In February 2014, in
Quetta, there was another bomb blast that killed 84 people.
In October
2017, 20 people were killed at a Hazara shrine. “This is a big contradiction in
Pakistan because the establishment, government and the military doesn’t make a
distinction between Shias and Sunnis,” Gupta said.
Hazaras are
a very distinctive ethnic tribe, with Mongoloid features. “They look different
and this doesn’t help them as they already have a different sect which is under
attack from Sunni supremacists in Pakistan. They got into trouble on two
accounts — sectarian and ethnic prejudices,” Gupta said.
The word
‘Hazara’ or ‘Hazarajat’ (a large area in the central highlands of Afghanistan
where most of them live) is not very ancient. The first mention of the word
‘Hazarajat’ was in the Babarnama.
Ibn
Battuta, a Morrocan traveller, who had travelled to the region in the early
14th century doesn’t mention Hazaras or Hazarajat. “So the presumption is, it
evolved from the Mongolian armies, or Ghengiz Khan’s concept of a thousand
strong formation of their armies, known as a battalion now,” Gupta added.
In
Afghanistan, their population is between 40-50 lakh. A million of them live in
Pakistan, including as refugees from Afghanistan.
“Hazaras
are similar to the Kurds and Armenians, both in terms of their geographical
location, their issues and the cruelties they have suffered in the last 100
years,” Gupta said.
Towards the
end of the 19th century, the Hazaras of Afghanistan had suffered massive
massacres, after which a lot of them migrated to Pakistan, mostly areas in
Balochistan and Iran.
In 1933,
Abdul Khaliq Hazara assassinated King Nadir Khan in Afghanistan that led to
another massacre of the tribe. “Since 1993 again, the reprisals and attacks
against the Hazaras started because Sunni groups dominated both Taliban and Al
Qaeda,” Gupta said.
The last major
killing of the Hazaras was in Bamyan, Afghanistan, in which 20-25 Hazaras had
died.
Original
Headline: Why Hazaras in Pakistan have been victims of sectarianism &
ethnic conflict
Source: The Print
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