QUETTA: Thousands of mourners from the Hazara community on Monday protested alongside the bodies of miners, killed in an attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
The 10 miners were kidnapped before dawn on Sunday as they slept near the remote coalmine in the southwestern mountainous Machh area, local government official Abid Saleem said.
Up to 2,500 protesters staged the sit-in, gathered with eight bodies in coffins and blocked a bypass on the outskirts of Quetta, demanding justice. "We will not end our protest until the arrest of all the assassins," chief of Balochistan Shia Conference, Agha Daud, said. "The latest wave of killings will spread to other cities including Quetta if a decisive action is not taken at this stage," he added. The protesting relatives of miners demanded resignation of the Balochistan government.
IS claimed the attack, according to SITE Intelligence, which monitors jihadist activities worldwide. Ethnic Hazaras make up most of the Shia population in Quetta, the country’s largest and poorest region, rife with ethnic, sectarian and separatist insurgencies. Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed reached Quetta Monday evening and joined a sit-in organised by members of the Hazara community and families of the deceased coal miners a day after the Machh massacre.
Sh Rashid said that he is ready to accept all the demands of the Hazara people except the resignation of the Balochistan government.
Sheikh Rasheed reportedly flew to Quetta — and arrived at the Western Bypass protest site — on Prime Minister Imran Khan's directives, sources had told Geo News earlier, adding that the interior minister would be briefed on the investigation into the miners' murder.
The minister was accompanied by National Assembly Deputy Speaker Qasim Khan Suri and Balochistan's chief secretary.
"On Prime Minister Imran Khan's special instructions, I arrived in Quetta alongside Federal Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed to share the grief of the families of the martyrs of the Machh tragedy, assure our Hazara community of immediate justice, and to review the security situation," Suri wrote on Twitter.
The NA's deputy speaker underlined that a high-level meeting presided over by the interior minister was held to provide immediate justice to the families of the martyrs of the Machh tragedy. Balochistan Interior Minister Mir Ziaullah Langau, Abdul Khaliq Hazara, provincial chief secretary, and the inspector-general of Frontier Corps, among others, participated in the meeting, he added.
The interior ministry has also sought a report on the massacre.
