Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday assured the Hazara community that he would visit them the same day they buried the slain miners and said the perpetrators of the heinous incident would be brought to justice, calling on them to refrain from “blackmailing the premier”.
Speaking at the inauguration of Special Technology Zones Authority, the prime minister said all demands of the Hazara community following the Mach incident had been accepted; however, making the burial of killed miners conditional upon him visiting them was inappropriate. “You don’t blackmail the prime minister of any country like this.”
“Anyone will blackmail the prime minister then,” he said, adding that this included a “band of crooks” in apparent reference to the Pakistan Democratic Movement. “This blackmail has also been on-going for two-and-a-half years.”
The prime minister said that the protesters were informed that he will visit once they bury those slain in the attack. “I am using this platform to say that if you bury them today, I will go to Quetta to meet the families of the deceased.
“This should be clear. All of your demands have been met but you can’t impose a condition which has [no logic]. So first, bury the dead. If you do it today then I guarantee you that I will come to Quetta today.”
PM Imran’s remarks come as Balochistan’s Shia Hazara community continue its protest for the sixth straight day on Friday, refusing to bury those who were brutally killed over the weekend.
Imran Khan said he was deeply grieved by the tragic deaths of the Hazara community, which he said had suffered a lot over the decades, and lost precious lives, and suffered economic losses.
Expressing solidarity with the Hazara community, the prime minister said the government stands by them in their hour of grief. He said most of the slain miners were the sole breadwinners of their households and assured them that the government would fully compensate their families. He said the tragic incident at Mach was part of the conspiracy hatched by India as per intelligence reports.
The premier stated that the Hazara community has faced “the most cruelty”. He said that the killing of the 11 coal miners in Mach was part of a conspiracy that he has been highlighting “since March”. “I had informed my cabinet and then gave public statements on this: India is trying its level best to spread chaos in Pakistan,” he said, adding that this was focused on fanning the flames of sectarianism.
He said the intelligence agencies had already foiled four similar terrorist incidents. “I laud our intelligence agencies on the fact that they thwarted four major terrorist events. Despite this, a high profile Sunni aalim was killed in Karachi […] with great difficulty we managed to quell the flames of a sectarian divide.” He added that as soon as the Mach incident took place, he first sent Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid and then two federal ministers – Ali Haider Zaidi and Zulfi Bukhari – to speak with the mourners and assure them that the government stood with them. “We know, especially me, the kind of cruelty they have faced.”
On the launch of STZA, Imran Khan said Information Technology was a revolutionary sector that needed to be exploited by companies in the country to meet the demands of the contemporary world. He said only those companies gained during coronavirus pandemic that adapted to IT well in time. He said the main objective of the establishment of Special Technology Zones was to give incentives to the IT sector to make it flourish for the benefit of the country. He said with the second youngest population in the world, Pakistan could utilize the IT sector in providing employment to its youth. Also, the Pakistani nationals working in other countries could benefit from the Special Technology Zones, he added. The prime minister said great responsibility lay on STZA Chairperson Amer Ahmed Hashmi for creating a boom in the IT sector of Pakistan. Earlier, the prime minister inaugurated the Special Technology Zones Authority which will focus on the growth of the scientific and technological ecosystem.
