PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz and PPP head Bilawal Bhutto Zardari arrived in Quetta, on Thursday to visit the Hazara community who have been protesting the brutal murder of 11 miners in Balochistan.
According to details, PPP’s Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani along with PML-N leaders Maryam Nawaz, Parvez Rasheed and Ahsan Iqbal visited the victim families.
They arrived at Easter Bypass are of capital city, where Shia Hazara community has been protesting for past 4 days along with dead bodies of slain miners.
On this occasion while addressing the protesters Bilawal recalled that the Hazara community had protested with as many as 100 coffins after attacks during the PPP government’s tenure.
“Then too, you had put forward your demands to us. We had even dismissed the [provincial] government,” he told the protesters, regretting that attacks against the community had continued through the terms of subsequent governments.
“Pakistan is a country where even our martyred and the dead have to protest,” he said, adding that although basic utilities like gas and electricity had become expensive in the country, “but the people’s blood is cheap”, Bilawal said.
Maryam Nawaz, while condoling the bereaved families and protesters said: “I am at a loss for words because while the entire nation shared the pain of the Hazaras, no one could truly feel the tragedy that had befallen the miners’ families.”
While referring to Prime Minister Imran Khan, Maryam said to the protesters “I am sad that you are calling for an insensitive man and he doesn’t have the time to come here.”
On Sunday, unidentified armed men brutally killed 11 miners in a residential compound in Mach city of Balochistan. The attackers filmed the entire incident and later posted it online. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State (IS).
Since then the families of the miners have staged a sit-in protest along with the dead bodies on western bypass in Quetta. They have refused to bury the bodies until swift action is taken against the attackers by the authorities. Protester leaders also said that they will not bury the dead until the PM Imran Khan does not visit them.
Earlier, talks with with protesters led by Pakistan’s Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid failed in th early days of the protest. Later, a delegation of ministers sent by PM including the talks with Balochistan’s Chief Minister Jam Kamal also failed.
Maryam asked the PM: “Is your ego bigger than their pain?” She stressed while referring to Imran Khan “today I want to say while putting aside all political differences, please visit, for God’s sake. The state’s job is to protect its people, especially those who are under attack and vulnerable.”
It is to mention that there are protests ongoing against the murder of Hazara miners in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta.