Shia Teacher Killed in Quetta

A Shia teacher and zakir, Murid Abbas, was killed on his way to school on Wednesday in Quetta. The police deemed it an act of sectarian violence.

More than 100 people have died in similar violence over the past two years, according to the Daily Times.

I asked a friend to comment on the attack and he agreed to do so on condition of annonymity. His comments are below:

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The most recent killing of a member of Pakistan's Shiite community highlights the prevailing trend of contradictions in State policy. On the one hand, the State has tried to distance itself from religious extremism and its resulting fallout of persecution of minorities comprised of religious groups and sects. On the other hand, it is under no illusion to the fact that its undemocratic hold on power and relevant institutions can only be supported by these religious groups.

Hence, it would rather tolerate the fallout that such a marriage entails than take concrete steps to allay the concerns of those who are likely to be the murder victims of such a marriage. While the violence against Shias in the urban centers of Pakistan such as Lahore and Karachi is mostly sporadic, there is a low intensity campaign in the Northern Areas of Pakistan such as Gilgit to permanently crush and cripple the Shia minority there.

Quetta presents even an even more starker picture. Despite being an urban center, its proximity to the troubled Northern Areas and Waziristan entails that support for Deobandi-Wahabi extremist militias runs high. Just last year, there was the famous incident of Khawar Mehdi, a minder for two French journalist who was "detained" by the State and tortured. His fault was that he guided the French journalists in breaking the story that Quetta was still a Taliban stronghold years after Pakistan had officially jettisoned its policy of "strategic depth".

Quetta also has a signinficant presence of Shia Hazaras; a minority that has suffered horrifically under Taliban rule in Afghanistan and where they were the victims of periodic pogroms and mini-genocides (the most significant of which was the mass rape and slaughter of Hazara minorities during the 1998 takeover of Mazar-e-Sharif by the Taliban). It must also be noted that the destruction of the Bamiyan statues by the Taliban in 2001 was undertaken not simply to satisfy their puritanical creed but also to cripple Hazara consciousness; the latter of whom had been guarding and preserving these World Heritage sites under the pluralistic ethos of Shiaism.

The last two and half years have seen the Hazaras of Quetta as the worst victims of Wahabi terrorism in Pakistan. Similarly, the educated and more liberal Pushtun Shias in Quetta have also been the target of vicious attacks and suffered heavy casualties. The State prefers minimal action and has back tracked on every initiative that would curb the menace of extremist militias and hooligans. It has failed to reform madrasses, given too many concessions to extremist groups towards madrassa registration and it has failed utterly to amend or better yet, revoke the Blasphemy Law. These are the Beta Noir of Pakistan's Wahabi-Deobandi nexus. The Military-Mullah alliance is alive and kicking...