Imran Khan says he sympathises with the group that has confronted focused assaults, however is not going to go to till the useless are buried.
Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has expressed his sympathy with members of the ethnic Hazara group protesting in opposition to the killing of 10 coal miners in a focused assault final week, however has referred to a requirement that he go to them earlier than they bury their useless as “blackmail”.
Tons of of ethnic Hazara protesters, members of a group that has confronted greater than 20 years of focused assaults which have killed a whole bunch, have been blocking a freeway in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, because the assault happened on Sunday.
The ten miners had been apprehended by gunmen at a coalmine, recognized as belonging to the Hazara group after which executed, safety officers say.
The ISIL (ISIS) group claimed duty for the assault in a press release.
For the reason that assault, the family members of these killed positioned their coffins on a freeway in Quetta and refused to bury the useless till the killers had been apprehended and Khan got here to satisfy them.
Talking at an occasion within the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Friday, Khan precluded that risk, referring to their demand as “blackmail”.
“I’ve despatched them a message that look, when all your calls for have been met, then to demand that we’ll not bury them till the prime minister doesn’t come, no nation’s prime minister may be blackmailed like this,” he mentioned.
“As a result of then everybody will blackmail the prime minister of the nation.”
Protesters, who’ve braved the biting chilly of winter for six days, have held a number of rounds of negotiations with members of Khan’s cupboard, together with Inside Minister Sheikh Rasheed, however to no avail.
Via the week, protests unfold to a number of different cities, together with Karachi, Lahore and different cities.
In Karachi, the nation’s financial hub and largest metropolis, protests had been occurring in not less than 19 completely different areas, with entry to the worldwide airport disrupted briefly by demonstrations on Thursday.
The Nationwide Fee on Human Rights estimates that greater than 2,000 Hazaras – adherents of the minority Shia Muslim sect, and simply focused as a consequence of their distinctive facial options – have been killed in focused assaults since 2004.
They’ve been topic to focused shootings and mass bomb and suicide assaults, significantly in Quetta, the place the vast majority of the nation’s estimated half one million Hazaras reside.
Since 2013, after a number of the worst bombings happened, town’s Hazara inhabitants has been largely restricted to residing inside two closely fortified enclaves on both aspect of town.
On Friday, PM Khan mentioned he sympathised with the group, however wouldn’t accede to the demand to go to them till they buried their useless.
“In our nation, the individuals of the Hazara group, maybe they’ve seen the best injustice,” he mentioned.
“They’ve been focused, and significantly within the final 20 years, since 9/11, the form of terrorism in opposition to them and the form of injustice in opposition to them, they had been murdered, no different group has seen that form of injustice.”
Protest leaders on the sit-in in Quetta mentioned their demonstration would proceed.
Asad Hashim is Al Jazeera’s digital correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashim.