1988 Gilgit massacre

The 1988 Gilgit massacre was a mass killing of Shia civilians in the Gilgit District of Pakistan over a dispute about the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid al-Fitr.^[5]

1988 Gilgit Massacre
Part of Sectarian violence in Pakistan
Location of the Gilgit District in Gilgit-Baltistan
Location	Gilgit District, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan
Coordinates	35.8026°N 74.9832°E / 35.8026; 74.9832
Date	16–18 May 1988[1][2] Pakistan Standard Time (UTC+5:00)
Target	Shia Muslims
Attack type	Immolation, mass shooting, lynching, arson, mass rape
Deaths	150–700[3]
Injured	100+
Victims	Shia Muslims
Perpetrators	Sipah-e-Sahaba[4] Lashkar-e-Jhangvi[citation needed] Local Sunni tribesmen from Chilas
Assailants	Sunni Pakistani policemen Militants from North-West Pakistani Tribal Areas
Defenders	Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan Tehreek-e-Jafaria Pakistan Local armed Shia tribesmen
Motive	Anti-Shi'ism

The massacre was preceded by anti-Shia riots in early May 1988, which were caused by a dispute over the sighting of the moon for Eid al-Fitr after Ramadan between Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims. Local Sunnis, who were still fasting for Ramadan, had attacked the local Shias who had announced their commencement of Eid celebrations in Gilgit City, leading to violent clashes between the two sects.^[5][6][7] In response to the riots, local Sunni tribal leaders, tribal elders, and militant commanders led an armed group of local Sunni tribesmen from Chilas, Sunni militants from Afghanistan as well as Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province mostly from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, allegedly accompanied by Sunni Pakistani policemen from the KPK police, went into Gilgit district and the adjoining areas in order to suppress the revolt. It is estimated that anywhere between 150 and 700 Shia Muslims were killed in the resulting massacre and violence, in which entire villages were also burnt down. The massacre also saw the mass rape of hundreds of Shia Muslim women by Sunni tribesmen and militants.^[5][8]

Background

Further information: Islamization in Pakistan

Shia Muslims living in the Pakistani-administered territory of Gilgit-Baltistan have allegedly faced discrimination by the Pakistani government since its takeover of the region following the First Kashmir War between India and Pakistan in 1947–1948. The Shias claimed that under Pakistani administration, Sunni Muslims enjoyed inherent advantages in all business matters, were unilaterally awarded official positions and treated preferentially in legal cases. On 5 July 1977, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq led a coup d'état in Pakistan,^[9] establishing a military dictatorship, and committed himself throughout his tenure to converting Pakistan into a heavily conservative Islamic state and enforcing sharia law.^[10] Zia's state-sponsored Islamization increased the sectarian divisions between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and even between Sunni Deobandis and Barelvis.^[11] The application of Sunni-centric laws throughout the country was divisive.^[12] Attacks on Shias (as well as other religious minorities) increased exponentially under the rule of Zia-ul-Haq. The country's first major Shia–Sunni riots erupted in 1983 in Karachi, Sindh during the Islamic holy month of Muharram (which is especially significant for the Shia), and left at least 60 people dead.^[13] Further Muharram disturbances and riots followed over the course of another three years, spreading to Lahore and the province of Balochistan—leaving hundreds more dead. In July 1986, Sunnis and Shias clashed in the northwest town of Parachinar, near the Afghanistan–Pakistan border; many of them were equipped with locally-made automatic rifles. It is estimated that over 200 people died in this event of sectarian violence.^[12]

Conflict

The Karakoram Highway was used to transport the assailants from Chilas and Indus Kohistan to Gilgit

The first major anti-Shia riots in Gilgit District broke out in May 1988, stemming from a Shia–Sunni dispute over the sighting of the moon, which marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid al-Fitr. When Shia Muslims in Gilgit City commenced their festivities for Eid, a group of local Sunni Muslims—who were still fasting for Ramadan as their religious leaders had not yet declared the sighting of the moon—attacked them, sparking a series of violent clashes between Gilgiti Sunnis and Shias. Following a period of calm for about four days, a contingent of militants from the North-West Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, accompanied by additional militants from neighboring Afghanistan and local Sunni tribesmen from Chilas went to Gilgit to "teach (the Shias) a lesson", which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people.^[5]

Shia Muslims in Gilgit District were attacked and killed by a hundreds-strong force of Sunni jihadists and tribesmen. Shia women living in Gilgit District were also mass-raped by local Sunni tribesmen also the Afghan Jihadists.^[14][15][16]

The Herald, the former monthly magazine publishing of the Dawn Media Group in Karachi, wrote in its April 1990 issue:

In May 1988, low-intensity political rivalry and sectarian tension ignited into full-scale carnage as thousands of armed tribesmen from outside Gilgit district invaded Gilgit along the Karakoram Highway. Nobody stopped them. They destroyed crops and houses, lynched and burnt people to death in the villages around Gilgit town. The number of dead and injured was in the hundreds. But numbers alone tell nothing of the savagery of the invading hordes and the chilling impact it has left on these peaceful valleys.^[17]

Casualties

The exact casualties figure of the 1988 Gilgit massacre has been disputed. Some sources state that 150 to 400 people were killed while hundreds of others were injured,^[18] while other unofficial reports state that around 700 Shias were killed.^[3][19][20]

Claims of Exaggeration

In this incident, a Sunni band attacked and massacred hundreds of Shias in Gilgit shortly after a Shia demonstration had attacked the federal minister Qasim Shah, according to Shia cleric Mohsin Najafi. This was later exaggerated in the late 1990s by Indian writers to claim that the Pakistani army and military dictatorship had sent Osama bin Ladin and Pervez Musharraf to attack the Shias; many Indian outlets have repeated this claim in an effort to link the Pakistani army with Al-Qaeda. In fact, according to Azam Chaudhary who observed these events, the Lashkar was raised from nearby Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and also joined by some Sunni policemen. Because the Gilgit garrison - which was then mostly sent to the Siachen region in the standoff with India - did not stop the attack and in fact the government did not protect the Shias, a rumour developed that the attack had been encouraged by the regime. A decade later, Indian outlets attached both Pervez Musharraf and Osama bin Ladin to spice up the story, but this is untrue. Osama bin Ladin was then in Afghanistan and Musharraf serving as commander of the 25th infantry brigade at Bahawalpur, in South Punjab.^{[21][22][23][24]}

See also

• Destruction of Kashmiri Shias
• Persecution of minority Muslim groups
• Sectarian violence among Muslims
• Anti-Shi'ism
• Shia–Sunni relations
• Sunni Islam
• Shia Islam
• Freedom of religion in Pakistan
• Persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan
• Religious discrimination in Pakistan
• Sectarian violence in Pakistan