Follow-up: Slaughter of Chechens in Quetta

Follow-up to Another Cold-Blooded Murder In Quetta — This time it’s Chechens

Exactly what happened has become pretty clear. Below are two accounts, one from the papers and one through a friend who knows someone who was there. But do watch these short videos first:

Few days back, the killing of five Chechens by security personnel has shaken up every Pakistani. After the postmortem report and the accounts of eyewitnesses, majority of people are unwilling to accept that this unfortunate members of a single family were terrorists and suicide attackers. According to those in the know sources, these five were Chechens and members of a single Muslim family — a husband, his wife, their two daughters and a son — who were traveling from Kachlak to Quetta on a rented Suzuki. Their destination was Iran and their Russian passports had Iranian visas stamped on them. The police at the Kachlak check post let them through after receiving the demanded bribe and informed the police at the Balili check post. When this family reached Balili check post, the police personnel present also demanded their ‘bhatta’ (bribe) and let the family through after receiving it. The Balili officers too informed the next check post — the one belonging to airport police station — of the approaching ‘opportunity’. By the time the family got to the airport police check post, they had run out of money to pay the bhatta to make it through. Upon hearing the family had no money to pay the bribe, the eyes of the police fell upon the jewelry of the women and demanded that as payment, which the family was not willing to do. The police continued to hold them and mounted pressure on them to give up their jewelry.

After making it through [How? Did they give up some item of jewelry? It is not mentioned], when this unfortunate family proceeded further, they inquired from the local people about the location of the Federal Constabulary (FC) post so that they could file a complaint against the attitude/actions of the police. When they started proceeding towards the FC post down the road, the police who were following them got alarmed that their doings would exposed so they informed the FC people that some foreign suicide terrorists were heading to their post laced with suicide jackets with intent to blow up the FC post. The family members proceeded towards the FC post saying kalma and “Allah-hu-Akbar” to save themselves from the police and to show the FC personnel that they were in fact Muslims (meaning they meant no harm to them) but upon hearing the cries of “Allah-hu-Akbar”, the FC personnel thought them to be suicide bombers and opened indiscriminate fire upon them as a result of which they all fell injured close to the check post. Despite being seriously injured, the women kept waving their hands appealing to them to stop the shooting but the FC personnel continued the firing resulting in the death of all five family members. After the killing of the family, police officials claimed to the media that the dead were foreign suicide terrorists who were laced with advanced weaponry and that suicide jackets were also recovered from them. Police and FC personnel, to please the Americans, for self-promotion and to get awards (prize money) declared these people to be suicide bombers and this a successful operation against terrorism when in fact no suicide jackets nor any other weapons were recovered from the victims. The police and FC personnel were close to getting their awards and promotions when the postmortem report and the accounts of eyewitnesses proved the innocence of the victims. Later it was revealed that one of the dead women was seven-months pregnant. After the killing, one of the police officers present at the scene stole the expensive necklace from the neck of one of the dead women and pocketed it but this [utterly disgraceful] act was not hidden from the eye on the camera [see video below]. This reminded me of the heinous murder of Pakistanis in Macedonia a few years back. Macedonian security forces had shot dead some Pakistanis in a police ‘encounter’. Macedonia’s Interior Minister had claimed that their security forces had killed seven people “with links to Al-Qaida”. This whole operation was shown on all international TV channels. It was possible that that story too got buried with time but Wall Street Journal exposed the real facts of the matter and informed us that these poor Pakistanis had gone to Macedonia so that they could slip into Greece to look for work. Same kind of spin was applied to the incident in Quetta. It is sad that in our security forces their are such black sheep who — blinded by chance of promotions and cash rewards — see nothing wrong in spilling the blood of innocents to get that. Whatever happened to this family, the pain is being felt by me and every Pakistani. Few years back, an FC person in Khybar-Pakhtoonkhwa had taken a university professor off of a bus and really mistreated him of which General Kiyani had himself taken notice and action was taken against those responsible. Because FC, which is an arm of the military, is being blamed in this Quetta incident along with the police, the Army Chief and the Chief Justice of Pakistan should take notice of this incident and hold an independent inquiry so that the truth is revealed and the culprits are acted against. If today eyes are closed against this incident, this will encourage the criminal minded in the security forces and incidents like this will continue to occur.
Source: Istiaq Baig, Jang Daily, May 25, 2011

Here is the video of the police stealing the necklace:

Here I must greatly admire the three eyewitnesses featured in the above video who held a press conference at the Quetta Press Club challenging the “official” version. For all we know, it would be no surprise they have been “disappeared” by now. This video also features the lies of Khanzir Col Sohail (more on that below).

Of course there are some problems with this story, specifically the role of the FC which it tries to cover up some. As can be seen from the picures of the incident, it is clear that the five were in fact rounded up inside the barbed wire fence surrounding the heavy machine gun barrack — a place they could not have gotten to themselves. That the FC felt no threat from them is also very clear by the calm way the FC personal stood close by shooting at them with out a care in the world. If they thought the five were wearing suicide belts, FC guys wouls never have gotten so close and risked shooting them to have the explosive explode and get them too. This was plain coldblooded murder. No question about it. Here is the other account that fills in some blanks:

I have some personal friends who actually are based where the whole incident happened. Basically these guys were traveling and they were stopped at 2 different check posts where they were forced to bribe.

On the third (Police) check post the police stopped them and asked for a hefty amount in foreign currency. After an argument, these people were arrested and their hands were tied with some rope???

During all this incident, one of the woman ran towards a near by army/rangers check post while her hands were partly tied with a rope and started shouting for help.

On this the Police man started abusing and hitting the remaining people. During this tussle, the others also started running towards the check post while the cops started shouting that they are terrorists. These people managed to get behind that partial war/barracked and were lying on the floor and crying for help/mercy.

The Army Officer took his time, gathered his Jawaans and than without asking them to surrender (He did not ask them to surrender even once) sprayed them with bullets.

At the time of the death even one of the dead person (a woman?) was chained and that chain was taken off by a cop who was apparently filmed by a TV Crew/Taken pictures by surrounding people/journalists) That Cop is missing since this incident and although the police officer is just suspended, the army officer is still not arrested.

Pak Army Zindabad!
(Source)

The army officer being talked about is Col Sohail who has been proven to be a liar — he claimed the victims died of their own bomb going off but he was caught on tape taking part in the slaughter; see video below — but NO action was taken against him and is still at the same post enjoying the same position (I am sure a promotion is on the way).

Related videos and links:
Kharota Abad Scandal: Chechen Woman Photo Killed by FC Balochistan