QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) – A lawyer in Pakistan ended her three-day hunger strike after the country’s top general vowed to redouble efforts to protect the Shiite minority, which has been targeted in a string of attacks by Sunni extremists.
Jalila Haider called off her protest before dawn Wednesday following a meeting between Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa and leaders from the Hazara community in Quetta, where several Shiites have been gunned down in recent months. Police have yet to arrest any suspects.
According to a military statement, Bajwa said those who target Shiites “shall suffer twice as much.”
Pakistani lawyer Jalila Haider, center, from Hazara Shiite minority community participates in a hunger strike with others at a camp in Quetta, Pakistan, Monday, April 30, 2018. Haider, a lawyer in Pakistan has gone on hunger strike to bring attention to a string of killings of Shiites in the city of Quetta. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
Sunni extremists view Shiites as apostates, and have carried out scores of attacks over the past two decades that have killed thousands of them.
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