Hazara People (Quetta)
6:01 pm
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham, Conservative)
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. By way of declaration, Mr Deputy Speaker, I worked with Benazir Bhutto from 1999 to 2007. On the point about the Hazara community being affected, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is not the only community being affected? The Christian, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities are also suffering as a result of Pakistan’s having been a front-line state in the war against Russia and then in the war against al-Qaeda after 9/11. As a result, radicalisation and sectarian violence have spread from Afghanistan to Pakistan, leading to the murders of Benazir Bhutto and Shahbaz Bhatti, the Christian Minister. Of course I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s concern, but everyone has suffered as a result of the sectarian ethnic violence spreading from Afghanistan to Pakistan, not just the Hazara people.