QUETTA, April 14: The Hazara Democratic Party has called for a strike in the city on Sunday in protest against increasing armed attacks in which members of the Shia Hazara community were gunned down.

The call for the strike came after nine people, nine of them Hazaras, were killed in separate incidents in the city on Saturday. In a statement, the HDP appealed to political parties, student organisations, traders, transporters and labour unions to observe the strike.

The party postponed the all parties’ conference it had planned to hold in the city on Sunday and said a new date would be announced later.

The HDP regretted that Hazaras were being killed also in places where security forces are deployed. Condemning Sunday’s killings, it pointed out that there were check-posts of the Frontier Corps at the entry and exit point of the Brewery Road, yet gunmen were able to commit the crime near Killi Ibrahimzai area between the two posts.

The statement said that during the past week not a day passed without the killing of Hazaras but the government only issued statements announcing that terrorists would be captured soon.

The HDP said that 24 Hazaras had been killed during the past 10 days in the city and performance of the FC and police had remained far from being satisfactory because attackers were able to flee after each incident.

Meanwhile, the Balochistan Shia Council and Tahafuz-i-Azadari announced mourning for 40 and seven days, respectively.

Meanwhile, in separate statements, both factions of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, Awami National Party, Balochistan National Party (Mengal), Jamhoori Watan Party (Talal group), Tehrik-i-Insaf, PML-N, Balochistan chapter of Pakistan Workers Federation, Anjuman-i-Tajran Balochistan, Majlis Wahdat Muslimeen Balochistan and Pakhtun Students Federation strongly condemned the killing of Hazaras.

They severely criticised the government and it had miserably failed to curb lawlessness in the province.