Sectarian schisms have had strong impacts on the lives of Pakistani citizens. Balochistan is the province that has been bearing the brunt of this scourge. On Tuesday, October 04, 2011, gunmen attacked a bus carrying people from Hazara community in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province. The target attack killed 13 people and injured six others.

According to reports, the attackers forced the passengers to stand in line and fired at them. Quetta city is situated in the South-West of Pakistan and is the capital city of Balochistan, which is around 125 km away from the border of Afghanistan and nearly 220 km away from Kandahar city.

About a couple of weeks ago, around 29 people belonging to hard-working and peaceful Hazara community were killed by a group of gunmen who opened fire on their bus in Mastung district, in Balochistan.

It is now said that buses now in Quetta refuse to take Hazara people because they fear target attacks on Hazaras. Does it mean that being a Hazara and Shiite has turned into a crime in this troubled province of Pakistan? Lashkar-e Jhangvi, an anti-Shi'a extremist group, claimed responsibility for the killings.

Tuesday's terrible incident comes while people across the world are waging protests against the Mastung appalling and vicious sectarian act. Over the last days, people from US, UK, Australia to Austria and Sweden and across Europe have been calling for stoppage of these systematic killing of a community in Pakistan that has always remained peaceful and justice-loving.

The Pakistani governments have never shown any will to address the sectarian and target killings in the country. This is part of the whole situation in Pakistan. It has become turbulent as the Pakistani Taliban militants do their own violent and terrorist operations in Peshawar and other cities and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an extremely violent anti-Shia terrorist organization is spreading terror in Balochistan and launching target killings of Hazaras.

The two killings just within a span of two weeks of Muslims in Pakistan's Balochistan province show failure of Pakistani authorities to address sectarian violence across the country. It is hoped that Pakistani government will listen to the voices across the world and address the suffering of a whole human community in the hands of lunatic fringes in Balochistan.