At least 12 Shia Muslims were martyred and 40 others injured in a roadside bomb attack on convoy at Parachinar Road in Tal, Hangu Thursday. The road has been declared sensitive by the security forces.  Fifteen school-going children are among the injured.  According to the Shiite News Correspondent, the roadside bomb attack hit a passenger bus near a petrol pump at Tehsil Tal area of Dandor.

There is a frequent movement of security forces in the area and heavy contingents of security officials were deployed near the blast scene. Those injured have been transferred to the CMH hospital where the condition of some of the injured is said to be critical. Security forces and people in the locality have started the relief activities.

The conovy of Shia passengers of Kurram Agency Parachinar was passing from this area are accompanied by 4-5 vehicles of security forces usually as this road has been declared sensitive already.

Eye witnesses told the Shiite News that out of 12 shia Muslims of Kurram Agency were martyred inclduing 5  men, three women and two children. They said that the remaining buses, which escpase from the bomb blast are now moving towards the AliZai area of Kurram Agency. However, Some Shia families are still at Tehsil Tal in the houses of Shia people of the area.

“Our convoy was hit by a big explosion. It’s all chaos here. I myself have seen four dead, two of them are children. I have seen four wounded women,” said witness Javed Hussain, who was in the convoy of vehicles carrying Shia Muslims to the city of Peshawar.

Commissioner Kohat Khalid Khan said that the blast occurred in a border area. He said that emergency has been declared at the hospitals of Hangu and Kohat and serious injured being transferred to Kohat.

The security forces have cordoned off the area. Three vehicles were badly damaged in the bomb blast incident. Dead bodies and injured were being shifted to CMH TehsilTal and other hospitals.

Medics say death toll is expected to rise as some of the injured were said to be in critical condition.

The incident comes after a string of sectarian attacks on Shia Muslims in recent months undermined the already deteriorating security of the insurgency-hit country.

This is while the Taliban-linked Wahhabi groups in Parachinar, Hangu district and much of the Kurram tribal agency have embarked on a series of fatal attacks on Shia Muslims.

Some local sources say that more than 2,000 Shia community members have been martyred in the region since 2007. Since the 1980s, thousands of Shia Muslims have been killed in violence-related incidents in Pakistan by extremist groups. Kurram agency, a federally administered tribal area (FATA), has a population of more than 0.8 million Shia Muslims who suffered from brutalities of Taliban terrorists much more than any other religious or ethnic community.

Shia Muslims of Kurram Agency (Parachinar) had to travel to Pakistani territories via Afghanistan because the government and army of Pakistan lacked their writ in the areas leading to Parachinar.

The Shia Muslims of Parachinar, Jaffaria Alliance of Shia organisations, Imamia Sttudents Organization and Majlis-e-Wahdat-e-Muslimeen of Shia groups have condemned the criminal silence of United Nations Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, International Crisis Group and Human Rights Organisation of Pakistan (HRCP), civil society, NGOs and lawyers organisations towards the worst violation of human rights of Shia Muslims.

They also condemned the Western governments that are self-claimed champions of human rights. They said that hapless Shia Muslims suffer from genocide, massacre and pogrom-like anti-Shiism since early 1980s but no serious practical step has been taken so far against the perpetrators of genocide of Shia Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan.