Dangerous war between Shia-Sunni in Pakistan, death toll exceeds 150

Separated from India in the name of Islam, Pakistan has sunk into a blind well of religious madness from which it is almost impossible to get out. Since its creation till now, the poison of extremism has filled the veins of the country and today the situation is such that Every other person in the country has become a jihadist.

A recent example of this is the war between Shias and Sunnis. Violent clashes between Sunni and Shia Muslims in northern Pakistan have forced more than 300 families to flee their homes. More than 150 people have been killed in sectarian fighting in the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the past few months, including 32 killed in the latest clashes on Saturday.

“Since this morning, around 300 families have fled to Hangu and Peshawar in search of safety,” a senior official said, according to a report by news agency AFP. He further said that more families are preparing to flee from Kurram district of the state. The area borders Afghanistan, which is currently reeling from Taliban insurgency.

“Fighting between the Shia and Sunni communities continues at many places,” another senior administration official told news outlets. Of the 32 people killed in Saturday’s clashes, 14 were Sunni and 18 were Shia.

Why started the war between Shia and Sunni?
Saturday’s clashes began two days after gunmen opened fire on two separate convoys of Shiite Muslims, AFP reported. The group was traveling with police escort in Kurram, and 43 people were killed in the incident, while 11 are in critical condition.

Following the incident, Shia Muslims began attacking several Sunni positions in Kurram, once a semi-autonomous region, on Friday evening. About 317 shops and more than 200 houses were destroyed in Kurram in the attacks, a senior official said. At around 7 pm, “a group of angry Shia Muslims attacked the Sunni-dominated Bagan Bazaar,” the official said.

“After the firing, they set fire to the entire market and entered nearby houses, sprinkling petrol and setting them on fire,” he said. Meanwhile, Javadullah Mehsud, a senior official in Kurram, told AFP that “efforts are being made to restore peace with the deployment of security forces and the help of local elders.”

However, another police official said there were not enough police and administrative personnel to handle the situation. “We have informed the state government that the situation is critical and additional troops need to be deployed immediately,” the official told the news agency on condition of anonymity. Last month, at least 16 people, including two children, were killed in separate clashes in Kurram district.

Dozens of people were killed in clashes in September and July, which ended only after a jirga, or tribal council, declared a ceasefire. The Independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said 79 people were killed in communal clashes between July and October.

Amid the chaos, the Human Rights Commission issued a statement on the matter, urging authorities to give “immediate attention” to the “alarming frequency of clashes”, saying the situation had escalated into a “humanitarian crisis”. “Weapons are being given to local opposition groups, which shows that the government is failing to control arms in the region,” the HRCP said.