QUETTA: Two people, including a member of the Hazara community, were gunned down in firing incidents in Quetta and Barkhan districts of Balochistan, while a body was found in Machh district, on Wednesday. According to police, unidentified armed men opened fire on a person on Circular Road of Quetta and managed to flee from the scene. As a result, the victim received multiple bullet wounds and died immediately. His body was shifted to Combined Military Hospital for medico-legal formalities where he was identified as Hussain Ali Hazara. Police said the incident appeared to be a case of sectarian killing however, investigations were underway to unearth the real motive behind the killing. No group claimed responsibility of the incident. In another incident, a man, identified as Nadeem Jan, was gunned down in Barkhan by unidentified armed men. Moreover, on a tip-off, police recovered a body from the old bus stop in Machh and shifted it to a state-run hospital for autopsy where it was identified as that of Ejaz. Police quoting hospital officials said there was no injury on the body of deceased. Police have registered separate cases of all incidents and investigations are underway. staff report
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Two killed, body found in Balochistan
QUETTA: Two people, including a member of the Hazara community, were gunned down in firing incidents in Quetta and Barkhan districts of Balochistan, while a body was found in Machh district, on Wednesday. According to police, unidentified armed men opened fire on a person on Circular Road of Quetta and managed to flee from the scene. As a result, the victim received multiple bullet wounds and died immediately. His body was shifted to Combined Military Hospital for medico-legal formalities where he was identified as Hussain Ali Hazara. Police said the incident appeared to be a case of sectarian killing however, investigations were underway to unearth the real motive behind the killing. No group claimed responsibility of the incident. In another incident, a man, identified as Nadeem Jan, was gunned down in Barkhan by unidentified armed men. Moreover, on a tip-off, police recovered a body from the old bus stop in Machh and shifted it to a state-run hospital for autopsy where it was identified as that of Ejaz. Police quoting hospital officials said there was no injury on the body of deceased. Police have registered separate cases of all incidents and investigations are underway. staff report
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Student Killed in Melee at Afghan University
November 25, 2012 6:05 pm
By AZAM AHMED / The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Sectarian violence erupted on the campus of Kabul University on Saturday, claiming the life of at least one student and wounding eight others as Shiite Muslim students observed a major religious holiday, the police said.
The clash began Saturday evening as Sunni Muslim students tried to prevent their Shiite counterparts from observing Ashura inside a dormitory mosque. The holiday commemorates the martyrdom of Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and a revered figure in Shiite Islam. The confrontation escalated during the night, with students throwing stones at one another. University officials eventually sent in the police to break up the melee.
Some police officers said that as many as three people might have been killed, but only one death was confirmed as of Saturday night. University officials evacuated the school and canceled classes for the next 10 days.
Shiites and Sunnis represent the two main branches of Islam. Some extremist Sunnis view Shiites as heretics.
The government had hoped to avoid violence during Ashura this year after a series of bombings killed more than 60 worshipers in Kabul during last year's holiday. Expanded security measures this year successfully thwarted at least two suicide bombings during Saturday's processions, which drew tens of thousands of Shiites to the streets.
Aside from the melee at Kabul University, there were few other episodes of violence reported across the country.
While the Shiite minority, many of them ethnic Hazaras, suffered violent discrimination under the Taliban before 2001, ethnic violence has been muted in recent years. Last year's Ashura bombings were the work of a Pakistani extremist group known for attacking Shiites for their religious beliefs.
But last month, fighting erupted primarily between ethnic Pashtuns and Tajiks at Kabul Education University after President Hamid Karzai decided to rename the school the Martyr of Peace Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani University. Mr. Rabbani, a former Afghan president who was killed by a suicide bomber last year, was a Tajik.
Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
First Published November 25, 2012 6:01 pm
Post Gazette
By AZAM AHMED / The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Sectarian violence erupted on the campus of Kabul University on Saturday, claiming the life of at least one student and wounding eight others as Shiite Muslim students observed a major religious holiday, the police said.
The clash began Saturday evening as Sunni Muslim students tried to prevent their Shiite counterparts from observing Ashura inside a dormitory mosque. The holiday commemorates the martyrdom of Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and a revered figure in Shiite Islam. The confrontation escalated during the night, with students throwing stones at one another. University officials eventually sent in the police to break up the melee.
Some police officers said that as many as three people might have been killed, but only one death was confirmed as of Saturday night. University officials evacuated the school and canceled classes for the next 10 days.
Shiites and Sunnis represent the two main branches of Islam. Some extremist Sunnis view Shiites as heretics.
The government had hoped to avoid violence during Ashura this year after a series of bombings killed more than 60 worshipers in Kabul during last year's holiday. Expanded security measures this year successfully thwarted at least two suicide bombings during Saturday's processions, which drew tens of thousands of Shiites to the streets.
Aside from the melee at Kabul University, there were few other episodes of violence reported across the country.
While the Shiite minority, many of them ethnic Hazaras, suffered violent discrimination under the Taliban before 2001, ethnic violence has been muted in recent years. Last year's Ashura bombings were the work of a Pakistani extremist group known for attacking Shiites for their religious beliefs.
But last month, fighting erupted primarily between ethnic Pashtuns and Tajiks at Kabul Education University after President Hamid Karzai decided to rename the school the Martyr of Peace Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani University. Mr. Rabbani, a former Afghan president who was killed by a suicide bomber last year, was a Tajik.
Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
First Published November 25, 2012 6:01 pm
Post Gazette
Afghan Clash Raises Sectarian Fears
Melee Between Shiite and Sunni Students Over Religious Custom Adds to Concern Over Coalition's Exit
By MARIA ABI-HABIB And ZIAULHAQ SULTANI
KABUL—Afghanistan's sectarian tensions boiled over this weekend when university students split between the two main Muslim sects attacked each other, leaving one dead and 27 wounded, and stoking fears the violence could reopen old civil-war fault-lines.
Students commemorating Ashura—a Shiite religious day of mourning—were prevented by their Sunni peers from celebrating at dormitories housing students from four of Kabul's major universities, both Shiite and Sunni students said.
The students say they were being discriminated against for their religious beliefs and called in reinforcements from nearby Hazara communities, which are predominantly Shiite. Hundreds of people, not all of them students, were involved in the clashes.
After Saturday's bloodshed, Afghanistan's ministry of higher education suspended classes at all four universities, including Kabul University, for 10 days, to fix the damage at the campus and to wait for tensions between students to cool, interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said. Students living at the dormitories have been asked to find temporary accommodation....Continue Reading...
By MARIA ABI-HABIB And ZIAULHAQ SULTANI
KABUL—Afghanistan's sectarian tensions boiled over this weekend when university students split between the two main Muslim sects attacked each other, leaving one dead and 27 wounded, and stoking fears the violence could reopen old civil-war fault-lines.
Students commemorating Ashura—a Shiite religious day of mourning—were prevented by their Sunni peers from celebrating at dormitories housing students from four of Kabul's major universities, both Shiite and Sunni students said.
The students say they were being discriminated against for their religious beliefs and called in reinforcements from nearby Hazara communities, which are predominantly Shiite. Hundreds of people, not all of them students, were involved in the clashes.
After Saturday's bloodshed, Afghanistan's ministry of higher education suspended classes at all four universities, including Kabul University, for 10 days, to fix the damage at the campus and to wait for tensions between students to cool, interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said. Students living at the dormitories have been asked to find temporary accommodation....Continue Reading...
Afghan Shiites fear decline in status
By The Washington Post
Published: Saturday, November 24, 2012, 8:36 p.m.
Updated 18 hours ago
KABUL, Afghanistan — For the past week, the Afghan capital has been draped with black cloth arches and festooned with huge colored banners. Mournful, pounding chants pour from loudspeakers across the city, filling the air with slow martial intensity.
The dramatic display is all part of Muharram, the 10-day Shiite festival that commemorates the slaying of Imam Hussein, a 7th-century holy figure and early champion of Islam. It is also a symbol of the growing religious and political freedom that Afghanistan’s long-ostracized Shiites have had in the past decade.
Now, as Western military forces prepare to leave the country by 2014, Afghan Shiites, most of whom are from the Hazara ethnic minority, fear their window of opportunity may slam shut again, leaving larger rival ethnic groups as well as Taliban insurgents, who are radical Sunni Muslims, dominating power.
“Everything we have achieved, our ability to come out and participate in society, has been in the shade of the international community and forces,” said Mohammed Alizada, a Hazara Shiite who was elected to parliament in 2009. “We are very concerned that once they leave, the fundamentalists will re-emerge, ethnic issues will return, and we will lose what we have gained.”
There are more immediate fears as well. Sectarian violence, historically absent from Afghan society, has been intensifying in next-door Pakistan and spilling across the border.....Continue Reading...
Published: Saturday, November 24, 2012, 8:36 p.m.
Updated 18 hours ago
KABUL, Afghanistan — For the past week, the Afghan capital has been draped with black cloth arches and festooned with huge colored banners. Mournful, pounding chants pour from loudspeakers across the city, filling the air with slow martial intensity.
The dramatic display is all part of Muharram, the 10-day Shiite festival that commemorates the slaying of Imam Hussein, a 7th-century holy figure and early champion of Islam. It is also a symbol of the growing religious and political freedom that Afghanistan’s long-ostracized Shiites have had in the past decade.
Now, as Western military forces prepare to leave the country by 2014, Afghan Shiites, most of whom are from the Hazara ethnic minority, fear their window of opportunity may slam shut again, leaving larger rival ethnic groups as well as Taliban insurgents, who are radical Sunni Muslims, dominating power.
“Everything we have achieved, our ability to come out and participate in society, has been in the shade of the international community and forces,” said Mohammed Alizada, a Hazara Shiite who was elected to parliament in 2009. “We are very concerned that once they leave, the fundamentalists will re-emerge, ethnic issues will return, and we will lose what we have gained.”
There are more immediate fears as well. Sectarian violence, historically absent from Afghan society, has been intensifying in next-door Pakistan and spilling across the border.....Continue Reading...
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Security tightened in Quetta on Ashura
Sunday, November 25, 2012
From Print Edition
QUETTA: In a bid to thwart terror attack in Quetta, the provincial government has stiffened security with the deployment of about 8,000 personnel of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in the city, sources said on Saturday.
“About 5,478 personnel of police and the Balochistan Constabulary have been deployed in the provincial capital besides 21 platoons of the Frontier Corps have also been called in for maintaining peace during Muharram,” sources in the Home Department told APP.
They said three battalions of 61 Brigade of the Pakistan Army will remain standby to assist the civil administration. They added that ban has also been imposed on motorbikes and carrying arms across the province.
They said three control rooms each at the offices of the CCPO Quetta, the commissioner and the deputy commissioner have been set up, linking them with 32 security cameras installed on the routes of the processions. “The CCTV cameras will also monitor all entry and exit points of the provincial capital,” they maintained. The deployment has also been made on the routes of the processions and around Imambargahs.
The roads leading to the routes of Ashura processions have already been blocked by placing containers. Meanwhile, helicopters of the Pakistan Army were also seen hovering over to provide aerial surveillance of the processions.
From Print Edition
QUETTA: In a bid to thwart terror attack in Quetta, the provincial government has stiffened security with the deployment of about 8,000 personnel of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in the city, sources said on Saturday.
“About 5,478 personnel of police and the Balochistan Constabulary have been deployed in the provincial capital besides 21 platoons of the Frontier Corps have also been called in for maintaining peace during Muharram,” sources in the Home Department told APP.
They said three battalions of 61 Brigade of the Pakistan Army will remain standby to assist the civil administration. They added that ban has also been imposed on motorbikes and carrying arms across the province.
They said three control rooms each at the offices of the CCPO Quetta, the commissioner and the deputy commissioner have been set up, linking them with 32 security cameras installed on the routes of the processions. “The CCTV cameras will also monitor all entry and exit points of the provincial capital,” they maintained. The deployment has also been made on the routes of the processions and around Imambargahs.
The roads leading to the routes of Ashura processions have already been blocked by placing containers. Meanwhile, helicopters of the Pakistan Army were also seen hovering over to provide aerial surveillance of the processions.
درگیری بین دانشجویان در خوابگاه پوهنتون کابل
به نظر می رسد که درگیری بر سر برگزاری مراسم عاشورا در مسجد پوهنتون بوده است
شهریار شهرزاد - کابل
شنبه ٠٤ قوس ١٣٩١ ساعت ١٧:٠٣
گزارش های از پوهنتون کابل در شهر کابل حاکیست که بین محصلان بخش خوابگاه این پوهنتون درگیری رخ داده است.
صدیق صدیقی سخنگوی وزارت امور داخله به خبرگزاری بخدی گفت که ماموران پولیس در محل درگیری اعزام شده اند و وضعیت در کنترول پولیس است.
آقای صدیقی می گوید که بر اثر درگیری سه تا چهار محصل زخمی شده که به شفاخانه انتقال یافته اند.
صدیقی در مورد وضع صحی زخمی شدگان چیزی نگفت اما تاکید کرد که درگیری پایان یافته است.
با این حال، یک دانشجو از خوابگاه پوهنتون کابل به خبرگزاری بخدی گفت که بر اثر این درگیری، دو دانشجو جان خود را از دست داده و حداقل پنج محصل دیگر زخمی شده اند.
این محصل می گوید که شماری از دانشجویان از منزل سه و چهارم خوابگاه به پایین پرتاب شده و برخی آنان در وضع بدی صحی قرار دارند.
او که خواست نامش در خبر ذکر نشود می گوید که ماموران پولیس حداقل سی تا سی و پنچ محصل را به اتهام شرکت در درگیری بازداشت کرده اند.
به نظر می رسد که درگیری بر سر برگزاری مراسم عاشورا در مسجد پوهنتون بوده است.
شماری از محصلان می گویند که درگیری پس از چاشت امروز آغاز شد و محصلان نخست به طرف همدیگر سنگ پرتاب می کردند.
این درگیری حوالی ساعت چهار به اوج خود رسید و ماموران امنیتی وارد محل درگیری شدند.
گفته می شود که در این درگیری به ساختمان خوابگاه نیز خساره وارد شده، شیشه ها و دروازه های برخی از اتاق ها شکسته است.
مقام های امنیتی تا هنوز رقم تلفات و خسارات وارده به خوابگاه پوهنتون کابل را تایید نکرده اند.
مراسم عاشورا در سراسر کشور در فضا امن برگزار شد و گزارشی مبنی بر خشونت در این مراسم ها مخابره نشده است.
برخی از برگزار کنندگان و سخنرانان در مراسم عاشورا در کابل از فعالیت نیروهای امنیتی اظهار خرسندی کرده و تلاش های آنان را در تامین امنیت ستودند.
حامد کرزی رییس جمهور در مسجد قهرمان کربلا، جنرال مجتبی پتنگ وزیر داخله در حوزه علمیه خانم النبیین و شماری از
اعضای ولسی جرگه و مقامات کشور حضور داشتند و ادامه راه امام حسین را رسالت بزرگ برای مسلمانان خواندند.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Shia massacre in Pakistan, more extensive and focused: Analyst
Pakistani Shia Muslims shout slogans and carry banners as they march during a protest in Islamabad on March 2, 2012, against the killing of Shia travelers in Kohistan area.
Thu Sep 6, 2012 5:53PM GMT
What is now happening to the Shia Muslims in Pakistani regions such as Gilgit, Baltistan, Parachinar, Kurram agency, Quetta and other areas is indeed the continued legacy of violence initiated by Zia ul-Haq and financed by Saudi Wahhabis in an effort to limit the influence of the Shia Muslims in the country.”
The massacre of Shia Muslims in Pakistan, which has grown in quantity and become more focused, is aimed at ‘smashing the pillars of the Pakistani society to smithereens,’ a prominent analyst says.
“That the Shia mass murders have continued over the years with no legal and judiciary source or law enforcement agencies having sought to put an end to these brutalities indicates that these acts are but to be considered as part of a systematic and organized plot prodigiously funded and ingeniously engineered by internal and external forces with the express intention of making the pillars of Pakistani society fall to smithereens, shattering the very fabric of the Shia community and distorting the image of Pakistan and depicting it as a religiously intolerant nation,” Dr. Ismail Salami wrote in an article on the Press TV website.
Salami said the killings, which had raged over the past few years but have intensified in recent months, “practically amounted to genocide, raising more-than-sectarian alarm bells not only in Pakistan but also across the Muslim world.”
“The targets which were basically focused on any ordinary person with Shia belief have now come to include those Shia Muslims who belong to the educated and elite class of the Pakistani society,” he added.
According to World Minority Rights Report (2011), Pakistan ranks as the 6th worst country in terms of violence against and persecution of the Shia Muslims and minorities.
At least six people including a Shia Muslim doctor were killed in separate attacks in different regions of militancy-ravaged Pakistan on Wednesday.
Last week, senior Shia judge Zulfiqar Naqvi was killed along with his driver and bodyguard in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan Province
Shia Doctor Syed Naimatullah s/o Syed Sarwar was also recently assassinated in Quetta in broad daylight at his clinic at Kirni Road, raising the tally of targeted killings since January this year to 419.
Salami said the history of violence against the Shia community in Pakistan goes back to the time of military dictator Zia ul-Haq who made it “a state policy to fund and arm Wahhabi groups” in the 1980s.
“It was during those years when he (Zia ul-Haq) technically institutionalized violence by unleashing Sipah-e Sahaba fundamentalists on Shia-populated regions, ushering in a new age of violence and mayhem,” he added.
Zia ul-Haq, the prominent author said, tasked Pakistan intelligence agency, ISI, with monitoring the activities of Shia organizations all over the country “lest the Shia Muslims would be empowered in the wake of the advent of the Iranian Revolution in 1979.”
“What is now happening to the Shia Muslims in Pakistani regions such as Gilgit, Baltistan, Parachinar, Kurram agency, Quetta and other areas is indeed the continued legacy of violence initiated by Zia ul-Haq and financed by Saudi Wahhabis in an effort to limit the influence of the Shia Muslims in the country.”
HMV/SS/IS
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