With the recent killing of innocent coal miners in Balochistan by ISIS, I have been trying to keep myself up to date with the news in Pakistan. The Pakistani public has been absolutely enraged by this act of terrorism in the country after finally having had a break from such news for a while. What seems to have further angered the people, myself included, is the fact that the Prime Minister, who you can see in the picture I have attached to this blog post, has refused to go visit the town where the killings took place until the people are done mourning, and is instead claiming that the families of the victims are blackmailing him to make an appearance. The families simply want to know that the leader of their country stands by them and will try to bring some form of justice to them. And to add to this, these families are all impoverished who mainly had a single bread winner in each household, and who now have none.
In this news article, the Prime Minister, who has no interest in helping the mourning families of the victims, is blatantly claiming that ISIS is being funded by the Indian government in the hopes of "inflaming sectarianism" within Pakistan because the victims were all Shia. He also goes on to state that the government and the Pakistani Intelligence Agency were to be commended for their job of diffusing the situation, even though 9 men were killed because of the shooting. By reiterating the claim that India had something to do with the killings, the Prime Minister is diverting the negative attention away from his own incompetence, and creating mass hatred within the public for its neighboring country. Pakistan is a highly political country, and it would not be wrong to assume that many people probably believe every single word that has come out of this man's mouth, even though his claims have been empty, with no proof to support them. Yet, because the long held hatred for India already exists within the Pakistani public, it was probably very easy to persuade them into believing his words.
On top of very blatantly making India out to be the clear perpetrators of the crime, the Prime Minister also makes it a point to repeat on multiple occasions that the Pakistani government, the Chief Minister of Balochistan, and every official government personnel involved have done a commendable job and therefore should be praised. By constantly establishing that it is not the government's fault, that they are just as much the victim as the public, the Prime Minister is strengthening the shared identity within Pakistan, while also "othering" India and Indian people.
I cannot say for certain whether India has anything to do with the shootings, but I do not agree with making claims and accusations in front of the public without backing it up with evidence because that only leads to further violence and animosity, and this is very dangerous considering India and Pakistan share a border.
Reference:
Dawn.com. (2021, January 10). India backing IS to spread unrest in Pakistan: PM Imran on Hazara killings. Retrieved January 12, 2021, from https://www.dawn.com/news/1600800/india-backing-is-to-spread-unrest-in-pakistan-pm-imran-on-hazara-killings
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