In 1988 a revolt by the Shias of Gilgit (in northern Pakistan) was ruthlessly suppressed by the Zia-ul Haq regime. The Pakistan Army inducted Osama bin Laden to lead an armed group of Sunni tribals, from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, into Gilgit and its surrounding areas to suppress the revolt. Osama bin Laden and his hordes massacred and raped several hundred Shia civilians in Gilgit.
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Background
Shias allege discrimination by the Pakistani government since 1948, claiming that Sunnis are given preference in business, official positions and administration of justice. On 5 July 1977, General Zia-ul-Haq led a coup d'etat. Zia-ul-Haq committed himself to establishing an Islamic state and enforcing sharia law. Zia's state sponsored Islamization increased sectarian divisions in Pakistan between Sunnis and Shias and between Deobandis and Barelvis. The Pakistani government leaned in favour of applying Sunni law to all. Attacks on Shias increased under the presidency of Zia-ul-Haq. Pakistan`s first major Shia-Sunni riots erupted in 1983 in Karachi during the Shia holiday of Muharram, leaving at least 60 people dead. More Muharram disturbances followed over the next three years, spreading to Lahore and the Baluchistan region and leaving hundreds more dead. In July 1986, Sunnis and Shias, many of them armed with locally made automatic weapons, clashed in the northwestern town of Parachinar, where at least 200 died.
Conflict
The first major anti-Shia riots in Gilgit broke out in May 1988 over the sighting of the moon, which ushers the end of the holy month of Ramadan. When Shias in Gilgit celebrated Eid al-Fitr, a group of extremist Sunnis, still fasting because their religious leaders had not announced the sighting of the moon, attacked them. This led to violent clashes between Sunnis and Shias. After a brief calm of nearly four days, the Pakistani 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.
Raman states that there was a revolt in Gilgit by its Shia population, which called for a separate Shia state. The Pakistan Army then transported Osama Bin Laden and his hordes to massacre hundreds of Shia civilians-men, women and children.
The Herald, the monthly journal of the prestigious Dawn group of 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.
Casualties
The exact number of casualties has been disputed. According to sources 150 to 400 people were killed while hundreds of others were injured. Unofficial reports gave a number of 700 Shias killed.