QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) – The Prime Minister of Pakistan on Friday called on the Protestant Shiite minority not to ban the funeral of 11 coal miners from their Hazara community, who were killed by the Islamic State group last week. to demand that he visit the mourners.
To say that the miners would not be buried before he visited the protesters amounts to extortion, Prime Minister Imran Khan said.
Since Sunday, hundreds of mourners have gathered in Quetta, next to the coffins of the miners, despite cold weather. They want Khan to visit them to ensure their protection.
According to Islamic tradition, funerals take place as soon as possible after death. But the Shiites continued to oppose the killing of miners in the province of Baluchistan, where Quetta is the provincial capital.
The protesters promised to continue the session for several months if Khan did not accept their main demand. They also planned to hold a sitting in the capital, Islamabad, where dozens of Shiites rallied on Friday night and condemned Khan for calling the mourners blackmailers. The miners died on Sunday after being abducted near the Machh coal field, 48 kilometers (30 miles) east of Quetta.
“No prime minister of any country should be so blackmailed,” Khan said in television remarks from Islamabad.
The opposition and Khan’s critics quickly chastised him on social media over the remarks, saying they did not sympathize with the mourners who have been protesting for six days in a row. Maryam Nawaz, a leader of the opposition party of the Muslim League in Pakistan, said Khan was insensitive and that his ego was preventing him from doing the right thing.
Khan said his government had accepted all other demands of the mourners and that he would be able to travel to Quetta immediately after the miners first buried their loved ones. But the Shiites rejected Khan’s offer, saying that their protest would continue until he visited them.
“We will not bury our people until Prime Minister Imran Khan comes to Quetta to see our trial and suffering,” said Arbab Liaquat Ali, a Shiite leader. Around him during the protest action, some of the women had a blindfold and hands tied behind their backs as a sign of protest.
Before Khan came to power in 2018, Khan, as opposition leader, would criticize Prime Minister for attacks on the Hazara community and that he did not rush to Quetta to show compassion.
IS militants kidnapped the miners in Baluchistan on Sunday and then shot dead. In the police video of their bodies, it appears that the miners were blindfolded, their hands tied behind their backs before being shot.
The Sunni IS subsidiary immediately claimed responsibility and since then authorities have raided militant shelters to track down and arrest those who organized the killings, although Khan insists Pakistan’s neighbor India is behind the violence. Baluchistan was.