Complete strike in Quetta against Mastung tragedy

QUETTA: A complete strike was observed in the provincial capital on Saturday to mourn the Mastung tragedy which left as many as 22 innocent passengers killed in the Khad Kocha area.
The strike was observed on the call of the Pakhtunkhawa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), which had already announced a three-day mourning over the loss of innocent human lives in the incident.
Main markets; shopping malls and shops in the city remained closed while thin vehicular traffic was observed plying on the roads.
However, medical stores, hotels and other food outlets remained open in the city.
Markazi Anjuman-e-Tajran Balochistan supported the strike.
The sirens of ambulances continued to echo in the city on main MA Jinnah Road where the bodies were brought to take to the Governor’s House by the heirs of the deceased to stage the protest demonstration.
The political leadership and administrative officials tried to pacify the protesters and to convince them to bury their loved ones but the angry protesters refused to do so and insisted that they be allowed to move ahead and stage a sit-in in front of the Governor’s House.
“We will not leave the place until the top men in the provincial setup assure the arrest of culprits involved in the mass killings and exemplary punishment to them,” protesters told provincial minister Abdul Raheem Ziaratwal.
“Our men were going to Karachi in search of work, had nothing to do with politics of any kind but they were brutally killed,” the angry heirs told the government team which kept trying to cool down tempers asking them to perform the last rituals of the dead.
After the government and opposition accepted the demands of the protesters, the 10-hour long sit-in by the victims’ families against the Mastung tragedy in front of the Chief Minister House in Quetta ended as they took the bodies and departed for Pishin.
The bodies of 19 passengers were also in the ambulance during the sit-in. The victims’ families demanded of the government to take strict against the people involved in the Mastung tragedy.
Provincial Minister for Information Abdul Raheem Ziaratwal, opposition leader Maulana Abdul Waseeh and ANP parliamentary leader Engineer Zamark Khan were among the negotiating team. The opposition took control of the situation and a meeting was held at the Chief Minister’s House while CM Abdul Malik Baloch presided over the meeting.
After the meeting, Abdul Malik Baloch came out and addressed the sit-in. “We are standing with the victims’ families against the terrorists in this sad and sorrowful moment. We will be running after the terrorists in order to capture them and to punish them,” Abdul Malik Baloch said.
“We will install FC checkpoints at the Karachi-Quetta National Highway and we would like to appeal to the families to bury the dead in the light of Islamic values,” he said. —Agencies
Meanwhile, Balochistan Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik on Saturday said an All Parties Conference (APC) would be convened to discuss the Mastung killings and evolve a strategy against such incidents in future. Addressing a joint press conference with political leaders and the provincial home minister here at the CM Secretariat, he said Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif had also agreed to attend the APC that would be held in the next few days.
This APC will be Mastung incident-specific, Dr Malik said while responding to a question about previous announcement of holding an APC. The issues to be discussed in the delayed APC were different and would be discussed whenever the moot was called separately, he added. The chief minister appealed to traders and businessmen of Balochistan to keep their businesses closed on Sunday as a mark of solidarity with the families of the Mastung tragedy victims.
The chief minister Balochistan also declared three days of mourning in the province. Meanwhile Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in their separate statements have strongly condemned the terrorist attack and massacre of 20 passengers of two buses near Mastung in Balochistan and termed it cowardly and barbaric. The HRCP demanded that the killers should be brought to justice and road travel be made secure from such wanton acts of violence.