pakistan0614_ForUplaod

These attacks were met by countrywide protests in support of the Hazara and the Shia
more generally.
Alamdar Road Snooker Club Suicide Bombing, January 2013
On January 10, 2013, a LeJ suicide bombing attack against a snooker club killed 96 Hazaras
and wounded at least 150 others. 129 The initial attack killed dozens. Ten minutes after the
first blast, as people went to the aid of the wounded, a car bomb planted in an ambulance
that arrived on the scene with other ambulances and rescue vehicles exploded near the
club, killing dozens more. 130
Mumtaz Batool, the sister of 22-year-old Mohammad Mehdi who was killed in the attack,
described the bombing:
I live at Rehmatullah Road close by to the scene of the attack. I first heard
what seemed like a relatively small bomb going off. My brother rushed out
to see what had happened, thinking that it was perhaps a rocket attack.
That was the last time I saw him. In the second follow-up blast, our entire
home shook, all the glass was shattered. My brother’s friends told me that
they were moving the injured out of the snooker club when one of the
ambulances waiting outside blew up. My brother was killed instantly.
Our entire neighborhood is full of homes grieving the dead and tending to
the maimed. There were bits of human flesh on our rooftops and our
courtyards. It was horrific. 131
Talib Hussain, 35, a bystander, told Human Rights Watch of the impact of the blast:
I was passing by the snooker club as I live close by. When I heard the blast,
I ran to the club to help. As I moved away from the club for a few minutes
about six ambulances entered. And then there was a flash of light.
129 “Pakistan blasts: Scores killed at Quetta snooker hall,” BBC News, January 10, 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worldasia-20969443
(accessed May 28, 2013).
130 Ibid.
131 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Mumtaz Batool, May 2, 2013
39 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | JUNE 2014