(REUTERS): Thousands of Shia Hazara community members continued their sit-in on the Western Bypass in the Quetta with the bodies of slain coal miners, demanding justice over the massacre of 11 colliers in Machh.
Earlier on Sunday, armed attackers slit the throats of 11 miners in a residential compound near a mine site in Balochistan’s Mach coal field, filming the entire incident and later posting it online.
Thousands of Hazaras have since staged a protest, arranging the coffins in the western bypass area in Quetta. “We have become tired of picking up the bodies of our people,” Syed Agha Raza, a Hazara Shia political leader, told an international news agency.
The protesters are refusing to bury the victims of the attack until demands, which include the resignation of the provincial government, are met. Protests also took place on Tuesday in Karachi.
On Monday night, Federal Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid met a delegation of the Majlis-e-Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM), who are leading the sit-in, in Quetta. However, the protesters refused to end their sit-in.
Provincial ministers Mir Zahoor Ahmed Buledi and Noor Mohammad Dummar and Deputy Commissioner Aurangzeb Badini also held talks with the MWM leaders taking part in the protest.
Meanwhile, a murder case was registered 35 hours after the incident with the Counter-terrorism Department at the Naseerabad police station on the complaint of the station house officer (SHO) of Machh against the unknown accused.
