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Bl[i]tZ
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The continuing strife in Balochistan is producing its own human tragedies and Karachi and its vicinity are not immune from its terrible fallout. Around 35 Hindu families have migrated to Hub from different parts of the province within the last one month, according to local residents in the area. Although the town is part of Balochistan, its proximity to Karachi makes it a safe haven for many desperate people fleeing from the interior of the troubled province.
For the first time in many years, the religious minorities in Balochistan, especially Hindus, are feeling insecure about their future in the province, traditionally tolerant in matters of religion. The exodus, which became evident recently, has been going on for years, say community elders.
Frequent abductions for ransom as well as the crippling law and order situation has forced many people within the minority community and other businessmen and professionals to sell their shops and properties for meager sums of money and hastily shift to either Karachi or Hub.
Amarnath Motumel of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says that within the past month he has been contacted by 27 Hindu families who have shifted to Karachi from Khuzdar and Kalat. A majority of them are teachers, doctors and businessmen. Calling them a soft target, Motumel says the families are easily recognisable by their businesses and professions and can be followed to and from work easily.
Though the Balochistan home department accepts that a large number of the 291 people abducted in the province last year were Hindus, the HRCP says that there is no actual figure of the number of Hindus abducted and migrating because of this factor. And the sole reason for this exodus is fear.
Fearing for their lives, those who have recently migrated live in a constant state of anxiety worried about being located and harassed.As a result, most of them do not share there home addresses or contact numbers with anyone, not even relatives living in the same city, HRCP sources say.
While the more influential among them have moved to Karachi, the ones with limited financial means have moved, bag and baggage, to Hub, 25 kilometers from the metropolis.
Squatting in front of a dingy lane at Laasi Road in Hub, Kumar narrates how he, along with many other Hindu families, fled the troubled province for good. From owning a paan shop in Khuzdar and making a decent income out of it, Mukesh Kumar now depends on the wages of his two sons and a daughter, who are now working as labourers.
After living for 30 years in Mastung and another 20 in Khuzdar, the recent cases of abductions and killings have forced Kumar to shift to an unfamiliar place and uncertain future. Kumar admits that their future is bleak in these new surroundings, but it is still better living here than living in constant fear.
Eking out an existence near Laasi Road for the past one year now, Kumar is known to many local people. After much hesitation, he started socialising with some of them at a popular tea stall in Hub. Yet, he admits feeling a bit disoriented after leaving his hometown.
Describing the situation in Khuzdar, Kumar says the constant shutter-down strikes had taken their toll on his business. And then there were the kidnappings. In time, those who could not pay or in some cases refused to pay the ransom demanded eventually found the bodies of their loved ones dumped near a garbage bin or in a hospital backyard.
I made the decision to leave for my sons, as I did not want the same treatment meted out to them. If someone kidnaps them, where will I pay from? What do I have? And more importantly, does anyone care? he asks helplessly.
Wheel of misfortune
Within the past 15 days, two more Hindus have been kidnapped from Quetta and Khuzdar respectively. Dr Anand Lal* speaking to The News on the phone from Quetta says that the widespread disturbances in the province, which began in 2005, do not seem like ending in the near future. Dr Lal is still waiting to hear something about his son Ramesh Kumar*, abducted from Zarghoon Road in Quetta earlier in the month. Giving an example, he spoke of a recent case where a tortured body of a man named Ravi Kumar was sent to a hospital in Quetta, after the local tribe asked the family not to pay the ransom money. It cannot happen without the involvement of powerful people, he says dejectedly. And he is not saying it after running out of people to blame for his misery, he adds.
It is not just Hindus that are currently under threat. Outsiders from the Muslim business communities too face the fear of violence and abductions. Three days ago, in a busy market of Quetta on Mission Road, a Hilux with tinted windows was seen stopping near a shop.
As people saw armed men forcefully pushing a young man named Zohaib Bohra from his shop, the government registration plate on the car was not missed by many either. The man was shot in cold blood as people looked on.
The Quetta chapter of HRCP says that as a result of the increasing violence and threat of kidnapping, around 25 Bohra families have shifted from Quetta recently. Nasrullah Mangozai, a fieldworker with the HRCP in Quetta, confirmed that in most cases of kidnappings many people recorded statements about seeing a pick-up truck thrashing their victim before pushing him in the vehicle and speeding off.
In the same area, a few steps further, is a Frontier Corps (FC) checkpost where even a motorcycle is checked thoroughly before being given permission to enter the market. And still these people barge in with their heavy vehicles and pick up whoever they want to, adds Mangozai.
Back in Hub, local residents reiterated the same when asked who is behind the kidnappings. Requesting anonymity, one of them said that the minute any Hilux or pick-up trucks enter a street, people immediately scatter away.
Farid Ahmed, a researcher with HRCP Quetta says that it is very easy to get a government number plate in the province. You need law and order to stop such things. Law is the last thing people are scared of and as a result youll find many cars with government number plates roaming around freely, without registration papers, he adds.
When it comes to facing the issue, Dr Lal says that whether it is a home minister or a minority minister, everyone keeps mum, after mumbling something about being sad to hear about the kidnappings. Nothing happens.
Different voices, same story
A few miles away from Laasi Road, in a Naval Colony, resides Salamat Ali, who has lived here for the past four years with his family. He cries copiously as he speaks about his hometown, Khuzdar. It is like asking a child how he feels after his mother dies in front of him, he says with a quivering voice. Fluent in Balochi and Brahvi, Alis family has been following Balochi customs for a very long time.
Easily identified by their professions, the violence and the subsequent attack on Urdu-speaking people, Punjabis and other outsiders started in 2006. When the situation got worse, Ali was asked by his neighbours and friends to shift to a safer place. Witnessing the deaths of many of his friends around him, he still knows exactly what is happening there, without being to Balochistan for months now.
You cannot just blame the Army or the intelligence agencies or the sardars alone for the mayhem and murder that continues in Balochistan. They are all responsible. Those who are being killed dont know why they are being killed. Is this sane in any way Ali asks in despair.
Professor Nagpal, a well-known educationist, says that everyone in the province has the same story to tell whether they are Baloch, Punjabi, Hindu or from the Hazara community. He adds that while violence and cruelty has been there for a long time, only the gravity has increased.
Getting a bit flustered with the term minority, Nagpal says that religion has nothing to do with nationality and so Hindus should not be considered separate from the Baloch.
Ahmed says that around 50 families have recently migrated from different districts of Balochistan. And around 100 have filed papers to the Indian High Commission seeking asylum in India.
In the middle of compiling a report on the plight of the minorities in Balochistan, Ahmed says that officials now simply refuse to talk when contacted. And once the report is completed, it will be the same people who will term the facts and figures exaggerated, blaming the organisation instead.
Holding a press conference a day before, Ahmed requested the government to seriously consider the issues faced by the minorities. Otherwise, migrating to India is the only option left, he says: They will now pursue this option if their lives are considered worth nothing.
* Names changed to protect identity
Desperate and frightened, Hindus migrating from Balochistan
For the first time in many years, the religious minorities in Balochistan, especially Hindus, are feeling insecure about their future in the province, traditionally tolerant in matters of religion. The exodus, which became evident recently, has been going on for years, say community elders.
Frequent abductions for ransom as well as the crippling law and order situation has forced many people within the minority community and other businessmen and professionals to sell their shops and properties for meager sums of money and hastily shift to either Karachi or Hub.
Amarnath Motumel of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says that within the past month he has been contacted by 27 Hindu families who have shifted to Karachi from Khuzdar and Kalat. A majority of them are teachers, doctors and businessmen. Calling them a soft target, Motumel says the families are easily recognisable by their businesses and professions and can be followed to and from work easily.
Though the Balochistan home department accepts that a large number of the 291 people abducted in the province last year were Hindus, the HRCP says that there is no actual figure of the number of Hindus abducted and migrating because of this factor. And the sole reason for this exodus is fear.
Fearing for their lives, those who have recently migrated live in a constant state of anxiety worried about being located and harassed.As a result, most of them do not share there home addresses or contact numbers with anyone, not even relatives living in the same city, HRCP sources say.
While the more influential among them have moved to Karachi, the ones with limited financial means have moved, bag and baggage, to Hub, 25 kilometers from the metropolis.
Squatting in front of a dingy lane at Laasi Road in Hub, Kumar narrates how he, along with many other Hindu families, fled the troubled province for good. From owning a paan shop in Khuzdar and making a decent income out of it, Mukesh Kumar now depends on the wages of his two sons and a daughter, who are now working as labourers.
After living for 30 years in Mastung and another 20 in Khuzdar, the recent cases of abductions and killings have forced Kumar to shift to an unfamiliar place and uncertain future. Kumar admits that their future is bleak in these new surroundings, but it is still better living here than living in constant fear.
Eking out an existence near Laasi Road for the past one year now, Kumar is known to many local people. After much hesitation, he started socialising with some of them at a popular tea stall in Hub. Yet, he admits feeling a bit disoriented after leaving his hometown.
Describing the situation in Khuzdar, Kumar says the constant shutter-down strikes had taken their toll on his business. And then there were the kidnappings. In time, those who could not pay or in some cases refused to pay the ransom demanded eventually found the bodies of their loved ones dumped near a garbage bin or in a hospital backyard.
I made the decision to leave for my sons, as I did not want the same treatment meted out to them. If someone kidnaps them, where will I pay from? What do I have? And more importantly, does anyone care? he asks helplessly.
Wheel of misfortune
Within the past 15 days, two more Hindus have been kidnapped from Quetta and Khuzdar respectively. Dr Anand Lal* speaking to The News on the phone from Quetta says that the widespread disturbances in the province, which began in 2005, do not seem like ending in the near future. Dr Lal is still waiting to hear something about his son Ramesh Kumar*, abducted from Zarghoon Road in Quetta earlier in the month. Giving an example, he spoke of a recent case where a tortured body of a man named Ravi Kumar was sent to a hospital in Quetta, after the local tribe asked the family not to pay the ransom money. It cannot happen without the involvement of powerful people, he says dejectedly. And he is not saying it after running out of people to blame for his misery, he adds.
It is not just Hindus that are currently under threat. Outsiders from the Muslim business communities too face the fear of violence and abductions. Three days ago, in a busy market of Quetta on Mission Road, a Hilux with tinted windows was seen stopping near a shop.
As people saw armed men forcefully pushing a young man named Zohaib Bohra from his shop, the government registration plate on the car was not missed by many either. The man was shot in cold blood as people looked on.
The Quetta chapter of HRCP says that as a result of the increasing violence and threat of kidnapping, around 25 Bohra families have shifted from Quetta recently. Nasrullah Mangozai, a fieldworker with the HRCP in Quetta, confirmed that in most cases of kidnappings many people recorded statements about seeing a pick-up truck thrashing their victim before pushing him in the vehicle and speeding off.
In the same area, a few steps further, is a Frontier Corps (FC) checkpost where even a motorcycle is checked thoroughly before being given permission to enter the market. And still these people barge in with their heavy vehicles and pick up whoever they want to, adds Mangozai.
Back in Hub, local residents reiterated the same when asked who is behind the kidnappings. Requesting anonymity, one of them said that the minute any Hilux or pick-up trucks enter a street, people immediately scatter away.
Farid Ahmed, a researcher with HRCP Quetta says that it is very easy to get a government number plate in the province. You need law and order to stop such things. Law is the last thing people are scared of and as a result youll find many cars with government number plates roaming around freely, without registration papers, he adds.
When it comes to facing the issue, Dr Lal says that whether it is a home minister or a minority minister, everyone keeps mum, after mumbling something about being sad to hear about the kidnappings. Nothing happens.
Different voices, same story
A few miles away from Laasi Road, in a Naval Colony, resides Salamat Ali, who has lived here for the past four years with his family. He cries copiously as he speaks about his hometown, Khuzdar. It is like asking a child how he feels after his mother dies in front of him, he says with a quivering voice. Fluent in Balochi and Brahvi, Alis family has been following Balochi customs for a very long time.
Easily identified by their professions, the violence and the subsequent attack on Urdu-speaking people, Punjabis and other outsiders started in 2006. When the situation got worse, Ali was asked by his neighbours and friends to shift to a safer place. Witnessing the deaths of many of his friends around him, he still knows exactly what is happening there, without being to Balochistan for months now.
You cannot just blame the Army or the intelligence agencies or the sardars alone for the mayhem and murder that continues in Balochistan. They are all responsible. Those who are being killed dont know why they are being killed. Is this sane in any way Ali asks in despair.
Professor Nagpal, a well-known educationist, says that everyone in the province has the same story to tell whether they are Baloch, Punjabi, Hindu or from the Hazara community. He adds that while violence and cruelty has been there for a long time, only the gravity has increased.
Getting a bit flustered with the term minority, Nagpal says that religion has nothing to do with nationality and so Hindus should not be considered separate from the Baloch.
Ahmed says that around 50 families have recently migrated from different districts of Balochistan. And around 100 have filed papers to the Indian High Commission seeking asylum in India.
In the middle of compiling a report on the plight of the minorities in Balochistan, Ahmed says that officials now simply refuse to talk when contacted. And once the report is completed, it will be the same people who will term the facts and figures exaggerated, blaming the organisation instead.
Holding a press conference a day before, Ahmed requested the government to seriously consider the issues faced by the minorities. Otherwise, migrating to India is the only option left, he says: They will now pursue this option if their lives are considered worth nothing.
* Names changed to protect identity
Desperate and frightened, Hindus migrating from Balochistan
