QUETTA: Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai has joined the chorus of people imploring Prime Minister Imran Khan to visit Quetta and meet Hazara community, which is protesting against the killings of 11 coal miners.
In a Tweet, young Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, said, “I am short of words to express my grief over the brutal killings of Hazara miners. This is not the first time that this has happened.”
“However, I hope it is the last,” she said, adding that the whole country is in mourning over the tragedy. “I request that PM meet with the victims’ families as soon as possible,” she concluded.
I am short of words to express my grief over the brutal killings of Hazara miners. This is not the first time that this has happened. But I hope it is the last. The whole country is in mourning.
I request that PM @ImranKhanPTI meet with the victims’ families as soon as possible. pic.twitter.com/gayKH3iaql
— Malala (@Malala) January 7, 2021
A day earlier, the prime minister in his message that he tweeted four days after the incident, told the members of the Hazara community that he stands with them in their time of suffering and assured them he would visit “very soon”.
The prime minister urged the Hazara community to bury their loved ones. The heirs of the deceased have been protesting for five days straight and have refused to bury the slain coal miners until the premier visits them.
Earlier in the day, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz visited the protesters to express solidarity with them and to pledge to do whatever their respective parties can to alleviate their sorrow.
On Sunday, armed attackers slit the throats of 11 miners in a residential compound near a mine site in Balochistan’s Mach coalfield area. Since then, thousands of Hazaras have staged a protest along with coffins containing the miners’ bodies in the western bypass area in Quetta.
