QUETTA: “Imran Khan apki sarpurusti main ye bacha apne walid ko qabar main utare ga” Imran Khan will help my four-year-old son bury his father under his supervision.
This was the demand of the mother of a four-year-old boy who lost his father in the Machh massacre.
She is among the thousands of Hazara women who are demanding justice for their loved ones for the third consecutive day in Quetta. They say they won’t budge until the premier visits Quetta and promises them justice.
On Sunday, 10 miners working at a coal mine in Machh were executed.
One of the protesters, a young woman, lost two brothers in the attack. “This is hell for us,” she said.
“They didn’t commit any crime. My brother had just gone to work to earn a livelihood. Is this their fault?” she questioned. “Whoever has done this doesn’t deserve to be called human.”
The woman has one demand: Prime Minister Imran Khan come to Quetta and meet the protesters. “He has to come and assure us that the murderers will be arrested.”
Another protestor, Hameeda Fida, said Hazaras have lost many of their loved ones in bombings and targeted attacks. “We have picked up the bodies of our loved ones for far too long but this case is the worst because of the government’s negligence.”
Similar protests are being held across the country. In Karachi, the protesters gathered in six different spots.
On Wednesday, the federal cabinet announced the PM will be visiting Quetta very soon. A date has not been fixed but it has been confirmed that the premier will speak to the families of the victims and the protesters.
Prime Minister Khan has vowed that the government will not abandon the people affected by the massacre.
On Monday night, Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed visited the protests on the instructions of the prime minister. He announced that Rs2.5 million would be given to the families of the victims. But negotiations remained unsuccessful as the Hazaras refused to end their protest.
The PM’s aide Zulfi Bukhari is currently in Quetta and his attempts at speaking to the protesters have been widely criticised after a video of him negotiating with the protesters emerged on social media.
“Tomorrow if someone dies in some other part of the country, people will say we demand this and we demand that but it can’t be done,” he is heard saying in the video. Following this, people called out the minister for his “lack of empathy”.
Please bury your loved ones: PM Imran Khan; “I want to reassure the Hazara families who lost their loved ones in a brutal terrorist attack in Machh that I am cognizant of their suffering and their demands,” said PM Imran Khan in a tweet.
“We are taking steps to prevent such attacks in the future and know our neighbour is instigating this sectarian terrorism,” he said.
