Genocide of the minority community in Pakistan continues unabated. This time at least 11 coal mining workers belonging to ethnic Shia Hazara minority community have been killed in execution-style in Bolan district, around 100 kms far from Balochistan's capital Quetta in Pakistan on Sunday.
The miners were selectively abducted from a group of miners when they were on their way to work by a group of armed terrorists who took them to nearby mountains and opened fire at close range. The attackers did not harm other workers.
According to a report in Dawn newspaper, an official of Levies Force, a special force in Balochistan, said that six of the miners died on the spot where rest five succumbed to injuries on the way to a hospital.
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— FJ (@Natsecjeff) January 3, 2021
In Pakistan, Islamic State has always had strongest presence in Balochistan province.
Loved ones of those killed staged a protest with the dead bodies on Quetta-Sukkur Highway in Balochistan. pic.twitter.com/AwqRIPbjGT
Attacker tied victims' hands, shot them, then slit their throats
Armed attackers identified the victims as being from the Shia Hazara community and took them for execution while left other unharmed, said Moazzam Ali Jatoi, an official of the Levies Force.
"The throats of all coal miners have been slit, after their hands were tied behind their backs and (they were) blindfolded," Reuters quoted a security official as saying.
Photos and videos doing rounds on social media showed the victims lying in a pool of blood in a room, with their hands tied in the back.
IS claims responsibility
Islamic State Wilayah Pakistan (ISPP) has claimed responsibility for the mass killing through Islamic State's Amaq news agency.
In images from the site of the executions released by Islamic State's Amaq agency, armed IS terrorists can be seen standing over blindfolded and tied up Shia men.
After the execution, members of the Hazara minority community in Quetta staged protests and blocked a road near the site of killings.
Reacting to the executions, Human Rights Activist Amjad Ayub Mirza blamed Pakistan Army for the miners' lives.
Pakistani minorities under attack
In April, at least nine Hazaras along with others were killed in a suicide bombing that took place in a market. Over 200 people were killed in three bombings in Hazara neighbourhoods in Quetta in 2013, according to Reuters.
Originally native to the mountainous region of Hazarajat in central Afghanistan, Hazaras have been often targeted by Taliban and Islamic State terrorists and other Sunni Muslim armed groups in Pakistan as well in Afghanistan.
Not just Hazaras, Pakistan seems to fail to protect its religious and ethnic minorities from extremist Islamic and Sunni Muslim armed groups.
Last week, a mob of Muslim fanatics vandalised and demolished a Hindu temple in Karak district of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. India has strongly condemned the incident.
