ISLAMABAD: Asad Ali, 14, has been selling potato chips on his cart for the last two years in Jinnah Super Market.

He opens his shop at 3pm after attending school and packs up at around 10pm.

He along with his family used to live in Quetta, but after the tragic death of his father in a suicide attack in 2011, his mother decided to move to Islamabad and settle here.

Asad said surviving on his income was very difficult for his family but they had to live with it as he worked hard to meet the monthly expenses.

Asad maintained that he was living in a rented house along with his mother and four other siblings while his mother also took care of the family by stitching clothes.

“Life has become more difficult after the migration as Quetta was comparatively cheaper. There we used to live in our own house,” he added.

Like Asad, 28-year-old Ali Rizvi left Quetta along with his family after the death of his younger brother in a suicide attack in September 2010.

“My brother was a volunteer and was providing aid to those who were wounded in a suicide attack on Al-Quds Day procession of Imamia Student Organisation (ISO) at Meezan Chowk in Quetta. The terrorists opened fire on the volunteers in which he received injuries and left us forever three days after the incident,” Rizvi said.

He said it was difficult for his family to stay in Quetta due to the ongoing target killings of Shia Muslims. It was not an easy decision to migrate from Quetta; “my father had to quit his government job”, he added.

Rizvi said his family sold their house at a throwaway price but it was the only option they had before migration.

“Although, I am doing a job in a university here, it is very difficult for my family to meet the monthly expense because Islamabad is very costly as compared to Quetta,” he added.

He said hundreds of families had left Quetta to secure their lives while thousands more wanted to move but poverty did not allow them.

“It is not possible for the poor people to get a house on rent in big cities like Rawalpindi or Islamabad.”

Sadiq Hussain, 50, left his hometown Akhtarabad in Quetta along with his family some eight months ago out of fear of being killed for being a Shia Muslim.

“I was running a shop and my wife was teaching in a local government school but I left my native town to secure the life of my family,” Sadiq said.

He said his wife had gotten leave from her school but she might have lost her job after her annual leave ended.

He said he was trying to open a grocery shop in Bhara Kahu area to run his family expenses.

“Had the government taken the terrorists head on, I would not have left Quetta,” he said.

Sughra Sadiq, 18, daughter of Sadiq Hussain, said she left her college after the suicide attack on the bus carrying female students of Sardar Bahadur Khan Women University in Quetta in June 2013.

“Although, it was not easy for me to leave my childhood friends, I believe it was important for me to continue my studies without any fear,” she said.

Alamdar Hussain, 22, lives in Sector I-10/1. He left Quetta along with his family three months back.

Alamdar said it was difficult for him to stay in Quetta as people from his community were constantly living in the shadow of death.

"Whenever I left my house for my job, my family would remain worried until I returned home safe and sound. Every person I knew faced a similar ordeal," he told Dawn.

He said his elder brother had also left Pakistan for Australia due to constant threats to his life but he remains jobless there.

“I work as a salesman at a cloth shop at Commercial Market in Rawalpindi but it is not enough to meet my family’s monthly expense,” he added.

Of the 600,000 Hazara community members, 100,000 have left their hometown. They used to live in two slums in the east and west of Quetta.

Around 80,000 people migrated from Quetta to Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi.

Member of the Balochistan Assembly Agha Raza told Dawn that around 1,400 people of Hazara community had been killed and 800 injured by terrorists since 2001.

“In the last five years, target killings have registered an increase, and the government has failed to establish its writ,” he said.

Agha said the Hazara community in Quetta was concentrated on its western and eastern sides. When they need to go from one side to the other they travel through the city amid fear.

“We are left with no option but to migrate from Quetta as we are being targeted due to our faith,” he added.

Senior Vice Chairman of Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen Mohammad Amin Shaheedi said it was unfortunate that some sectarian militant groups were killing innocent people of Hazara community.

Shaheedi alleged that banned outfits like Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Ansarul Islam were involved in target killings of Shia Muslims in Quetta but the government had failed to arrest the culprits.

Religious scholar and vice-chancellor of Riphah International University Professor Dr Anis Ahmad said Islam prohibited the killings of innocent people.

Dr Ahmed said it was the responsibility of the government to protect its citizens, but at the same time, religious scholars of various sects also had a responsibility to create awareness among people to stop such acts of terrorism.

Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) Ali Dayan Hasan told Dawn that there had been a ‘steady increase’ in attacks on Shias in general, and the Hazaras in particular, during the past two years.

“Hazara religious pilgrims, students, shopkeepers, vegetable sellers, doctors and other professionals have been targeted, leading to not just widespread fear but increasingly restricted movement,” he added.

He said thousands of people belonging to Hazara community had fled Quetta for Karachi, Islamabad and other parts of the country while hundreds of them were leaving for abroad.

The HRW director said the state and its security agencies were criminally incompetent and incapable of providing basic security to their own citizens.

When contacted, Federal Minister for Human Rights Senator Pervez Rashid was not available for comments.