1988 Gilgit massacre

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,{{Cite book |last=Grote |first=Rainer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PJBpAgAAQBAJ&dq=1973+constitution+pakistan+islam&pg=PA196 |title=Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries: Between Upheaval and Continuity |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2012 |isbn=9780199910168 |pages=196}} establishing a military dictatorship, and committed himself throughout his tenure to converting Pakistan into a heavily conservative Islamic state and enforcing sharia law.{{cite book |last1=Kepel |first1=Gilles |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OLvTNk75hUoC&dq=Nizam-e-Mustafa+sharia&pg=PA100 |title=Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam |date=2002 |publisher=I.B.Tauris |edition=2006 |pages=100–101 |isbn=9781845112578 |accessdate=5 December 2014}} Zia's state-sponsored Islamization increased the sectarian divisions between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and even between Sunni Deobandis and Barelvis.{{cite book |last1=Talbot |first1=Ian |url=https://archive.org/details/pakistanmodernhi00talb |title=Pakistan, a Modern History |date=1998 |publisher=St.Martin's Press |location=NY |page=[https://archive.org/details/pakistanmodernhi00talb/page/251 251] |isbn=9780312216061 |quote=The state sponsored process of Islamisation dramatically increased sectarian divisions not only between Sunni and Shia over the issue of the 1979 Zakat Ordinance, but also between Deobandis and Barelvis. |url-access=registration}} The application of Sunni-centric laws throughout the country was divisive. 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.{{cite news |last1=Broder |first1=Jonathan |title=Sectarian Strife Threatens Pakistan's Fragile Society |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-11-10-8703240490-story.html |access-date=23 February 2022 |publisher=Chicago Tribune |date=9 November 1987}} 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.{{Cite news |last=Broder |first=Jonathan |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/1987/11/10/sectarian-strife-threatens-pakistans-fragile-society/ |title=Sectarian Strife Threatens Pakistan's Fragile Society |date=10 November 1987 |work=Chicago Tribune |access-date=31 December 2016}}

File:KKH.png 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.

{{harvp|Bansal, In Pursuit of Forced Assimilation|2007|loc=pp. 61–62: 'This was perceived by Pakistani establishment to be an Iranian sponsored 'Shia Revolt'. Zia put a Special Service Group (SSG) group commanded by then Brigadier Pervez Musharraf to suppress the revolt and Musharraf responded by transporting "a large number of Wahabi Pakhtoon tribesmen from the NWFP and Afghanistan" to Gilgit "to teach the Shias a lesson. These tribesmen massacred hundreds of Shias"'}}

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.

{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PYquDAAAQBAJ&dq=gilgit+shias+osama+bin+laden&pg=PA37 |title=International Organizations and The Rise of ISIL: Global Responses to Human Security Threats |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 |isbn=9781315536088 |pages=37–38 |quote=Several hundred Shiite civilians in Gilgit, Pakistan, were massacred in 1988 by Osama Bin Laden and his Taliban fighters (Raman, 2004).}}

{{Cite book |last=Murphy |first=Eamon |title=The Making of Terrorism in Pakistan: Historical and Social Roots of Extremism |publisher=Routledge |year=2013 |isbn=9780415565264 |pages=134 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=19mPVOBZ_9YC&dq=gilgit+shias+raped+1988&pg=PA134 |quote=Shias in the district of Gilgit were assaulted, killed and raped by an invading Sunni Lashkar-armed militia-comprising thousands of jihadis from the Northwest Frontier Province.}}

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.

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,

Ambreen Agha, [https://www.newageislam.com/islam-and-sectarianism/ambreen-agha/gilgit-baltistan-murder-most-foul/d/6789 "Gilgit-Baltistan: Murder most Foul"], South Asia Intelligence Review, via New Age Islam, 5 March 2012;

{{Cite web |title=Gilgit-Baltistan: Murder most Foul |date=6 March 2012 |publisher=Urdu Teehzeeb |url=http://urdutahzeeb.net/articles/blog1.php?p=15659&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140605060046/http://urdutahzeeb.net/articles/blog1.php?p=15659&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 |archive-date=5 June 2014 |url-status=dead}}

while other unofficial reports state that around 700 Shias were killed.

{{harvp|Levy & Scott-Clark, Deception|2010|loc=Chapter 13: "Bin Laden’s militia mounted a savage pogrom, killing more than 300, and when the fighting had subsided Musharraf opened an office for SSP extremists in Gilgit, helping spread their influence across Pakistan.[8: Some accounts place the deaths at higher than 700. The claim made that Musharraf orchestrated the SSP move to Gilgit was by two of his contemporaries who spoke to the authors in the spring of 2006. The same claim was made in an author interview with Hamid Gul in the same month. B. Raman also made the claim in a paper for the South Asian Analyst Group.]"}}

{{citation |last=Bansal |first=Alok |title=Gilgit–Baltistan: The Roots of Political Alienation |journal=Strategic Analysis |volume=32 |number=1 |year=2008 |pages=81–101 |doi=10.1080/09700160801886355|s2cid=144005945 }}: "These tribesmen destroyed property and killed hundreds in the villages in and around Gilgit. According to one estimate, more than 700 people were killed and injured and the brutality of these marauding hordes left an indelible mark in this hitherto peaceful region."

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.{{cite journal |date=2014 |title=The ways of revenge in Chilas, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan: Shia-Sunni clashes as blood feuds |url=https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/61317/ssoar-ethnoscripts-2014-1-chaudhary-The_ways_of_revenge_in.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y |journal=Zeitschrift für Aktuelle Ethnologische Studien |quote=Many Shias in the region feel that they have been discriminated against since 1948. They claim that the Pakistani government continually gives preferences to Sunnis in business, in official positions, and in the administration of justice...The situation deteriorated sharply during the 1980s under the presidency of the tyrannical Zia-ul Haq when there were many attacks on the Shia population. In one of the most notorious incidents, during May 1988 Sunni assailants destroyed Shia villages, forcing thousands of people to flee to Gilgit for refuge. Shia mosques were razed and about 100 people were killed}}{{Cite news |last=Raman |first=B |date=26 February 2003 |title=The Karachi Attack: The Kashmir Link |url=http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/feb/26raman.htm |access-date=31 December 2016 |work=Rediiff News |quote=A revolt by the Shias of Gilgit was ruthlessly suppressed by the Zia-ul Haq regime in 1988, killing hundreds of Shias. An armed group of tribals from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, led by Osama bin Laden, was inducted by the Pakistan Army into Gilgit and adjoining areas to suppress the revolt.}}{{Cite news |last=Taimur |first=Shamil |date=12 October 2016 |title=This Muharram, Gilgit gives peace a chance |url=http://herald.dawn.com/news/1153556 |access-date=31 December 2016 |work=Herald |quote=This led to violent clashes between the two sects. In 1988, after a brief calm of nearly four days, the military regime allegedly used certain militants along with local Sunnis to ‘teach a lesson’ to Shias, which led to hundreds of Shias and Sunnis being killed.}}{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PYquDAAAQBAJ&q=gilgit+shias+osama+bin+laden&pg=PA37 |title=International Organizations and The Rise of ISIL: Global Responses to Human Security Threats |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 |isbn=9781315536088 |pages=37–38 |quote=Several hundred Shiite civilians in Gilgit, Pakistan, were massacred in 1988 by Osama Bin Laden and his Taliban fighters (Raman, 2004).}}{{Cite book |last=Murphy |first=Eamon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=19mPVOBZ_9YC&q=gilgit+shias+raped+1988&pg=PA134 |title=The Making of Terrorism in Pakistan: Historical and Social Roots of Extremism |publisher=Routledge |year=2013 |isbn=9780415565264 |pages=134 |quote=Shias in the district of Gilgit were assaulted, killed and raped by an invading Sunni lashkar-armed militia-comprising thousands of jihadis from the North West Frontier Province.}}

• 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

{{Reflist}}

• {{citation |last=Bansal |first=Alok |title=In Pursuit of Forced Assimilation: Sectarian and Ethnic Marginalisation in Gilgit-Baltistan |journal=India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs |volume=63 |number=2 |year=2007 |pages=56–80 |doi=10.1177/097492840706300203 |s2cid=153450836 |ref={{sfnref|Bansal, In Pursuit of Forced Assimilation|2007}}}}
• {{citation |last1=Levy |first1=Adrian |last2=Scott-Clark |first2=Catherine |title=Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bvRyTJjiBoAC |year=2010 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-0-8027-1860-0 |ref={{sfnref|Levy & Scott-Clark, Deception|2010}}}}
• {{citation |last=Singh |first=Priyanka |title=Gilgit Baltistan: Between Hope and Despair |publisher=Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses |location=New Delhi |date=2013 |isbn=978-93-82169-13-0 |url=https://idsa.in/monograph/GilgitBaltistan_psingh |ref={{sfnref|Priyanka Singh|2013}}}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilgit massacre, 1988}}

Category:Violence against Shia Muslims in Pakistan

Category:1988 in Pakistan

Category:Massacres in Pakistan-administered Kashmir

Category:Massacres committed by Pakistan

Category:Massacres in 1988

Category:History of Gilgit-Baltistan

Category:May 1988 in Pakistan

Category:Crime in Gilgit-Baltistan

Category:Massacres of Shia Muslims

Category:Lynching deaths in Pakistan

Category:20th-century mass murder in Pakistan

Category:Rape in Pakistan

Category:Rape in the 1980s

Category:Arson in Pakistan

Category:Arson in 1988

Category:1980s fires in Asia

Category:Mass sexual assault

Category:Osama bin Laden

Category:Attacks on buildings and structures in 1988

Category:Attacks on buildings and structures in Pakistan

Category:Massacres of Muslims in Kashmir