Pakistani minorities condemn killing of Shiite leader
The All Pakistan Minorities Alliance has urged the government to conduct a "firm but just" inquiry to shed light on the killing of Hasan Turabi, a high-profile Shiite political leader. The minorities have also called for a ban on writings that ignite religious hatred.
Karachi (AsiaNews) Pakistani minorities have "firmly condemned the murder of an influential Shiite political leader and religious scholar" and have "called on the government to conduct a firm but just inquiry to ensure justice is meted out to perpetrators of the crime". They have also appealed for a "ban on all literature and people who use religion as an excuse to inflame people and to instigate inter-religious hatred".
Contacted by AsiaNews, this was the reaction of Shahbaz Bhatti, president of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA) to the murder of Allama Hassan Turabi, a high-profile Shiite leader who was killed by a suicide bomber in Karachi on 14 July. Turabi's nephew perished with him as the two returned from an anti-Israel rally. This was not the first suicide bombing in the country, but it was the first ever that targeted a sole person.
The APMA chairman took the opportunity to urge the government to impose a total ban on all religious literature that instigated hatred and inflamed believers. Bhatti said: "Perhaps there is some foreign hand behind such incidents but the suicide attackers were from our own people, they were not foreigners."
The Home Minister of Sindh Province, Rauf Siddique, said the judges of the High Court were already at work to establish the motive and perpetrators of the crime. The city police chief, Niaz Ahmed Siddiqui, revealed that the suicide bomber was clad in a robe used by Muslim scholars and was waiting for Allama Turabi outside his home.
The fatal attack was not the first attempt on the politician's life: during one trip he was rammed by a pram laden with explosives. Turabi had accused an outlawed militant group, the Lashkar i-Jhanvi, of that attack.
After the murder, a group of youth took to the streets to vent their anger; they set some buses on fire and threw stones at cars. The leader of the Muttehida Majlas-e-Amal [MMA, an alliance of Pakistan's six Muslim parties] expressed "shock" at the killing of the influential politician, who used to be vice-president of the MMA, while the secretary-general, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, described Turabi's death as a "an enormous loss for the entire country".
Rehman urged the people to keep calm and said the murder was "the handiwork of those who want to destroy peace and create sectarian rift".
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27/05/2005
27/04/2022 17:10
