The 1988 Gilgit Massacre occurred after a revolt by the Shias of Gilgit, Pakistan who were suppressed by the Zia-ul Haq regime. This occurred when the first anti-Shia riots broke out in May 1988 over the sighting of the moon amongst Shias and a group of extremist Sunnis. The Pakistan Army led an armed group of Local Sunnis, Sunni tribals from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province into Gilgit and adjoining areas to suppress the revolt. It is estimated that between 150 and 700 Shias were killed in the resulting massacre and violence, in which entire villages were also burnt down.
Background
living in Gilgit Baltistan have allegedly faced discrimination by the Pakistani government since the nation's inception in 1948. They claimed that Sunnis were given advantages in business matters, were awarded official positions and were treated preferentially in legal cases. On 5 July 1977, General Zia-ul-Haq led a coup d'état in Pakistan, and committed himself to establishing an Islamic state and enforcing sharia law. Zia's state sponsored Islamization increased the sectarian divisions between Sunni and Shia, and between Deobandis and Barelvis. The application of Sunni law throughout the country was divisive. Attacks on Shias increased under the presidency of Zia-ul-Haq. The country's first major Shia-Sunni riots erupted in Karachi in 1983 during the Shia holiday of Muharram, leaving at least sixty people dead. Further Muharram disturbances followed over another three years, spreading to Lahore and the Baluchistan region and leaving hundreds more dead. In July 1986, Sunnis and Shias clashed in the northwestern settlement of Parachinar. Many of them were equipped with locally made automatic weapons. It is estimated that over 200 people died in this riot.
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 as their religious leaders had not yet declared the sighting of the moon, attacked them. This resulted in violent clashes between Sunnis and Shias. Following a brief calm of about four days, the Pakistani military regime reportedly used a number of militants along with local Sunnis to ‘teach a lesson’ to Shias, which resulted in the hundreds of Shias and Sunnis being killed. 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 along with Osama Bin Laden and his Taliban fighters. The Herald, the monthly journal of the 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. Some sources state that 150 to 400 people were killed while hundreds of others were injured. Unofficial reports gave a number of 700 Shias killed.
