In Pakistan, unarmed and helpless Shia community is marching on a one-way street to annihilation, as the mercenaries who treat them like sitting ducks on the receiving end still remain at large and protected by the military, reported Baltimore Post-Examiner (BPE).
With 10 per cent of the population being Shia, Pakistan has the third-largest Shia community in the world, behind Iran and India. However, the report said that more than half of Pakistani Muslims are wary of identifying with people of Shia community as fellow believers.
Shia assassinations were not unusual before Pakistan was founded, but they increased in frequency and severe during and after the Afghan war, according to the report, which also noted that the Pakistani army trained and attracted a lot of anti-Shia fighters for the Soviet-Afghan war.
According to BPE, the Pak army provided them ammunition, weapons, vehicles, and judicial immunity, which simultaneously increased their effectiveness against Shia community, reported BPE.
Moreover, numerous anti-Shia organisations have become immortal over time by forming alliances with ISIS, Al-Qaida, and the Taliban. It added that Shias consistently question the state’s neutrality in the face of free-roaming Shia killers.
Human Rights Watch’s 2013 research shows that the Pakistani military has links to anti-Shia terrorists. It also stated that due to military pressure, the police and judiciary disregard sectarian crimes, which stimulates terrorists to kill Shia community wherever and whenever they please.
Around 4,000 people of Shia community are said to have been killed between 2013 and 2021 because of their religious views, according to Canada’s International Forum for Rights and Security. The Washington-based United States Institute for Peace said 3,800 Shia people were murdered between 2007 and 2013, with 325 of those killings occurring in 2012.
According to Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission, more than 200 terrorist assaults in 2013 resulted in more than 1,000 injuries and nearly 700 deaths among Shia. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom also reported that over 600 people of Shia community were killed for their faith between 1999 and 2003.
The BPE added that between 2002 and 2018, state-sponsored terrorists attacked and damaged 104 Shia religious centres to discourage celebrations and rituals and stifle cultural identity.
The military kidnaps people of shia community for allegedly opposing the Taliban or cooperating with Iran’s mullah regime. It said that they are being held captive by military intelligence and Rangers with no opportunity for evidence gathering, a hearing, or an appeal.
As of the end of 2018, 300 Shia people were presumed missing, according to Shia organisations. By 2021, that number had increased to 700. However, the Government only recognises a small percentage of such cases.
The military conducts illegal home raids and confines Shia suspects in secret torture cells for indefinite periods of time in locations like Karachi. Despite their reservations about the judicial system’s fairness, the report said Shia community would prefer formal indictment and court trial to illegal abduction and torture.
However, the Pakistan Army is unwilling to oblige because the policymakers consider illegal detentions, extra-judicial torture, and murder as effective tools in combating existential threats to the country, reported BPE.
The Federal Commission on Enforced Disappearances appears helpless to find the victims of these kidnappings or stop them. In this regard, the International Commission of Jurists has chastised the Pakistani Government for allowing and maintaining impunity for forced disappearances and failing to compensate victims.
Terrorist organisations such as TTP, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Islami, and Ansar-ul-Islam, which have access to military weapons, add fuel to the fire during attacks on Shia, stated the report, adding that Mast Gul, a member of the Harkatul Mujahideen and the Al-Qaida-linked International Islamic Front, was among the terrorists involved in the Shia attacks in Kurram.
Chitral was once a stronghold of Ismailia Shia. They now make up less than 35 per cent of the district’s population. Chitral is strategically important for the Pakistani military and Taliban because it provides an easy road link to Tajikistan via the Wakhan Corridor, the report said.
Forced conversion of locals and the arrival of Sunni Afghans pushed Shia Ismailia to the brink of socio-economic collapse, reported BPE.
The situation in the neighbouring Ghizer district of Gilgit-Baltistan, where Shia-Ismailia forms a small majority, is similar to that in Chitral. With the immigration of Sunnis from Pakistan and decades of forced conversion marriages of females to Sunnis, the proportion of Ismailis has fallen from more than 80 per cent to less than 60 per cent.
Like Ahmadis, Pakistani Shia community are sitting on a ticking time bomb, and the threat of ex-communication is driving them to compromise their essential principles to be accepted as Muslims. Like Ahmadis, thousands of Pakistani Shia people also face blasphemy cases for merely proclaiming their beliefs and observing religious festivals.
