By our Correspondents

KABUL - The Killing of Hazaras in Quetta, Pakistan has now become order of the day. In a matter of few weeks about 30 Hazaras have been shot dead and many have been wounded.
On Saturday, April 14th, 2012, in three different incidents 8 Hazaras have been killed and some others injured.
In the first incident the assailants opened fire on a car, killing six people. The incident happened on Brewery Road in the Killi Ibrahim Zai area of the city.
The victim's bodies were shifted to Bolan Medical College hospital where they were identified as Abdullah, Juma Ali, Muhammad Ali, Syed Asghar Shah and Eid Muhammad, while identity of the sixth dead could not be ascertained. All of them were said to belong to the ethnic Hazara Shia community.

A senior local police official Malik Arshad confirmed the incidents and casualties and said: "The killings were part of sectarian violence in the city."
In another incident of firing, unidentified assailants riding bikes opened fire on people standing on a roadside on Sabzal road, in which one person identified as Gul Muhammad was killed while another, identified as Muhammad Hasan, was injured.

The dead and the wounded were shifted to BMC hospital.
In a third incident, gunmen opened fire at a policeman, who succumbed to his wounds, within the jurisdiction of Shalkot police station.

Yesterday, in a cowardly attack the assailants killed two Hazara watchmen of a market in the center of the city while day before yesterday, on Thursday April 12, two Hazara shopkeepers were shot dead and another injured.

The Killing of Hazaras, which is basically ethno-sectarian in nature, has been going on in Quetta, Pakistan on regular basis for the last few years. In different sort of such incidents more than 700 Hazaras have been killed since 2001. But recently there have been rise in such incidents to a great extent.

On Monday 9th, April 2012 six Hazaras were killed and five others received serious injuries bullet injuries when terrorist opened indiscriminate firing on the shop of Hazaras. Two [1] of them were murdered on Tuesday 3rd, April 2012 by terrorists while nine Hazaras [2] including a woman and a minor girl were killed in a two separate killing incidents on March 29th, 2012. Yet in another ruthless incident on Monday March 26th, 2012, unidentified gunmen opened indiscriminate firing on the shop of Hazaras on Sabzal Road Quetta, which resulted in the death of a Hazara ironsmith while his co-worker Hazara received serious bullet injuries.

In most of the incidents the banned Lashkar-e-Jangvi (LeJ) has claimed responsibility. The group is an extremist religious group, belonging to a particular Sunni school of thought, with anti-Shiite sentiments. The group is believed to have strong connections with the Al-Qaida and enjoy favor by culprits from within the Pakistani security forces. Though the group has been carrying on such killings openly, it is pathetic to see no concrete measures on the part of Balochistan's (Pakistani Province) provincial government.

Though there have been protests and demonstrations staged by Hazaras, not only within Pakistan but throughout the world, the Pakistani government and the international organizations do not seem to be effected much. After the recent incidents the citizens expressing concerns over the role of security forces to maintain law and order in the city have demanded the provincial and federal governments to take solid steps to stop the target killing incidents. Hazara community has expressed grave concern over targeted killing of members of the community and demanded immediate arrest of the culprits.