Tag: ISIS

  • Another old tweet comes to haunt Imran as 11 Hazara miners killed

    Another old tweet comes to haunt Imran as 11 Hazara miners killed

    After an attack by the Islamic State in Mach, a town in Bolan district of Balochistan, left 11 Hazara coalminers dead on Sunday, another tweet from the past has come back to haunt Prime Minister Imran Khan.

    In 2013, Imran had reacted to the Hazara killings by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi by holding the state responsible for its inability to stop these killings.

    “Tragic news from Quetta. Condemn Lashkar-e-Jhangiv for its genocidal campaign against Shias, especially Hazaras. Where is the state?” Imran had tweeted.

    However, this time, the massacre has happened during the government of Imran Khan and except a tweet, the PM has done nothing. This has also drawn flak from the opposition that has questioned the actions taken by the government to arrest the culprits.

    Senator Sherry Rehman said that despite the magnitude of this tragedy, the PM or the CM of Balochistan had not visited the families of the victims. “Our PM sat on the ground with half the cabinet members when something similar happened to the Hazaras in the past. What is PM Imran Khan waiting for?” she was quoted by The News as saying. 

    Meanwhile, protests in Quetta against the killings have continued. On Monday, protesters gathered with eight of the bodies in coffins and blocked a bypass on the outskirts of Quetta, demanding justice.

    OLD TWEETS COME TO BITE IMRAN:

    This is not the first time that old tweets of PM Imran Khan have come to haunt him.

    As PM Imran reached China amid Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan’s (TLP) nationwide protests in 2018, a 2012 tweet of his, went viral. In the tweet, he had criticised the then premier, Yousaf Raza Gillani, for traveling abroad as the country “burned”.

    After train accident in which 24 people were killed, the PM was also reminded of his tweet, wherein he demanded the resignation of the railways minister following a train accident. However, he didn’t ask then railways minister Sheikh Rasheed to resign even though his old tweet had gone viral at the time.

  • Islamic State claims responsibility for attack that killed 11 Hazaras in Balochistan

    Islamic State claims responsibility for attack that killed 11 Hazaras in Balochistan

     Islamic State, aka Daesh, has claimed responsibility for an attack on Sunday that killed 11 miners from minority Shia Hazaras in Balochistan.

    Reuters reported that the attack took place early in the morning in the Mach area of Bolan district, killing the miners who were in a shared residential room near the coal mine where they worked.

    “The throats of all coal miners have been slit after their hands were tied behind their backs and (they were) blindfolded,” a security official told Reuters. A video clip of the victims making the rounds on social media showed three bodies lying outside the room and the rest inside in pools of blood.

    The incident that shook the country drew criticism from all quarters. Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the killings, calling them “a cowardly inhuman act of terrorism”. “Have asked Frontier Constabulary to use all resources to apprehend these killers and bring them to justice,” he said in a tweet.

    Following the attack, the members of the Hazara community held a protest in Quetta. The protesters blocked the western bypass and burnt tyres to protest the killings.

    It is not the first time that the minority community has faced attacks from radical Islamist outfits, such as the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. In April, a market suicide bombing killed 18 people, half of whom were Hazaras. In 2013, three bombings killed more than 200 people in Hazara neighbourhoods in Quetta.