Peshawar: A Sikh businessman was shot dead on Friday by unknown assailants here, in the latest incident of targeted attacks against minority communities in Pakistan.
The incident took place at 3 pm when armed men on a motorcycle opened fire at Dayal Singh, a businessman in Peshawar’s Dir Colony area, police said.
The gunmen fled the scene after committing the crime, they said.
Police have collected 30 bore bullet shells from the site of the crime. CCTV footage from the shop has been obtained and the police have launched an investigation into the attack.
The Peshawar killing comes a day after a Hindu doctor was shot dead by unknown assailants in Karachi.
Last week, shopkeepers from the minority Hindu community were assaulted in the Sindh province for “allegedly violating the Ramzan ordinance,” according to the Express Tribune newspaper.
About 15,000 Sikhs live in Peshawar, mostly in the Jogan Shah neighbourhood of the provincial capital Peshawar.
Most of the members of the Sikh community in Peshawar are involved in business, while some also have pharmacies.
In September last year, a well-known Sikh hakeem’ (Unani medicine practitioner) was shot dead by unidentified gunmen inside his clinic in Peshawar.
In 2018, Charanjit Singh, a prominent Sikh community member, was killed by unknown men in Peshawar.
Similarly, news channel anchor Ravinder Singh was killed in 2020 in the city. In 2016, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf National Assembly member Soren Singh was also killed in Peshawar.
Hindus form the biggest minority community in Pakistan.
According to official estimates, 75 lakh Hindus live in the Muslim-majority country.
Muslims account for about 96 per cent of Pakistan’s 207 million population, Hindus 2.1 per cent and Christians about 1.6 per cent according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimates.
The majority of Pakistan’s Hindu population is settled in Sindh province where they share culture, traditions and language with their Muslim residents.
The Ahmadis, Sikhs and Parsis are also among the notable religious minorities in Pakistan.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Aurangabad: As many as seven persons have been arrested following a mob attack on a police station in central Maharashtra’s Aurangabad city while an injured man died in hospital, police said on Friday.
Normalcy returned to the city, recently renamed as `Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar’, even as the government deployed five companies of the State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) as a precaution.
At least 12 persons including 10 policemen were injured after a mob of around 500 people hurled stones and petrol-filled bottles when the cops tried to control the situation following a clash between two groups near the Ram temple in Kiradpura locality of Aurangabad, on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday.
The police used tear gas and fired some plastic bullets as well as live rounds to control the mob.
Barkat Shaikh (23), Shaikh Atik (24), Saddam Shah (33), Shaikh Khaja (25), Sharik Khan (23), Syed Noor (27), all local residents, and Shaikh Saleem (25) from Buldhana district were arrested for alleged rioting, said an official of Jinsi police station where a case has been registered.
Shaikh Muniruddin (51), who had suffered injuries during the violence, died at a hospital on Thursday night, officials said, without specifying how he came to be injured.
“Security at various sensitive locations in the city has been increased. The administration has deployed five companies of SRPF and nearly 600 police personnel are on guard to maintain peace,” an official said.
Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly Ajit Pawar said political parties, civil society and citizens must work towards ensuring peace in Aurangabad.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader said police are doing their work but everyone, including political parties, those in power or Opposition, civil society and common citizens should work towards ensuring peace.
Asked about the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s joint rally in Aurangabad on April 2, he said it had been planned much earlier, and leaders of the MVA constituents NCP, Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) — are working on it.
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut alleged that violence in Aurangabad and elsewhere on Ram Navami was “government-sponsored”, and the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government wanted to use the tensions as a pretext to disallow the MVA rally on April 2.
Fellow Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council Ambadas Danve contested Aurangabad MP Imtiaz Jaleel’s claim that some drug addicts were responsible for the violence.
“Drug addicts can not carry out such violence…..How can 400-500 people be drug addicts? I had got information and I had spoken about it with the commissioner multiple times. It was ignored by administration,” he claimed.
Danve also claimed that the agitation against the renaming of Aurangabad as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and the counter-agitation supporting the renaming led to this situation. Had the agitation against the renaming not taken place, this situation would have been averted, he added.
Bhopal: At least 13 people, a majority of them women, were killed after they fell into a deep steepwell at a temple in Indore on Thursday, while one minor girl was also also missing, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra said.
Out of the 13 fatalities so far, 10 were women. The death toll are likely to go up as some people are still missing.
“There was water into the well, which has turned into mud. A girl is reported missing. NDRF team is trying to find out some more people. So far, 13 dead bodies have been recovered,” Mishra added.
He said this unfortunate incident, which occurred at around 12.30 p.m. at the Baleshwar Mahadev temple as people came to offer prayers on the occasion of Ram Navami, has sent shock waves across Madhya Pradesh.
The incident occurred after the roof over the the stepwell, said to be at least 50-60 feet deep and full with water, collapsed as over 25 people were standing on it.
“An inquiry has been ordered under into the matter. Rescue operation was started soon after the roof of the well collapsed, but narrow space at the accident spot created hindrance in quick rescue operations,” Mishra added.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Madhya Pradesh Congress president Kamal Nath has express their grief over death of people in the incident. Senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayavargiya and Indore Mayor Pushymitra Bhargava have reached the spot.
Hyderabad: A leopard was found dead in Telangana’s Nalgonda district on Wednesday.
Locals found the carcass of the leopard in a dumping yard near Chandanapally and alerted the police, which in turn informed the Forest Department.
The animal was found dead in the bushes in a corner of the dumping yard. Forest officials shifted the carcass for a post-mortem examination. The cause of the leopard’s death will be known after the receipt of the post-mortem report, an official said.
It is suspected that the leopard died after consuming poisonous food kept by some farmers in the area to kill the wild boars damaging agricultural crops. About 20 wild boars had died after eating the food laced with poison and the leopard is also suspected to have consumed the same food.
A few days ago, residents of some areas including Chandanapally had complained to the authorities about a leopard moving in the area. They alleged that no attempt was made to catch the animal.
The leopard is suspected to have died about 10 days ago.
Image taken from a video showing ambulances and rescue teams staffers outside an immigration center in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on March 28, 2023. | AP Photo
By Associated Press
More than three dozen migrants have died in a fire at an immigration detention center in northern Mexico near the U.S. border, an official said Tuesday.
Images from the scene showed rows of bodies lying under shimmery silver sheets outside the facility in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas. Ambulances, firefighters and vans from the morgue could also be seen.
Thirty-nine people died and 29 were injured in the fire, which broke out late Monday, according to an official with the National Immigration Institute, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Mexico City: At least 37 people were killed and about 100 others injured as a deadly fire ripped through a migrant centre in Mexico’s city of Ciudad Juarez near the US border, media reports said on Tuesday.
Citing a statement from the Chihuahua state, CNN said that the fire occurred at the office of National Migration Institute (INM) located near the Stanton-Lerdo Bridge, which links Mexico and the US.
The incident took place shortly after about 71 migrants were brought to the centre late Monday.
The cause of the fire or the victims’ nationalities are yet to be ascertained.
Ciudad Juarez, the Mexican city located just across the Rio Grande river from El Paso, Texas, has seen an influx of people in recent weeks, reports the BBC.
SRINAGAR: A man died while another sustained injuries after a carrier vehicle met with an accident in the Doda district of Jammu region on Tuesday, officials said.
They said a carrier vehicle (JK06B-6047) on its way to Kishtwar from Doda met with an accident near Shibnote Premnagar area of Doda district.
A man identified as Murtaza Ahmed of Gurmaul Guwari village died on the spot while another man whom police identified as Faizan Iqbal Naik of Doda has been shifted to hospital for treatment.
Police took cognizance of the incident and registered a case in this regard. [KNT]
Washington: Three students and three adults were killed and several others injured in a gun attack at a school in US’ Tennessee state on Monday before the woman perpetrator was shot dead by the police, reports said.
The attack was reported from the Covenant School in Nashville, a private Christian school for students in pre-school to sixth grade, when the students are roughly 11 or 12 years old, the BBC reported.
Local media, citing sources at the local Vanderbilt University Medical Center, reported that three children were taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds and were pronounced dead.
Nashville police said they had “engaged” the shooter, who is now dead.
Later, Nashville police said in a briefing that six people have been killed – three children and three adults – and there are no additional victims. No additional details were provided.
The shooter was a female, the police said, and believed to be in her teens. Her name has not been released. She was armed with two assault-style rifles and a handgun, they said.
The police said that they first received reports of an active shooter at 10.13 a.m. (local time, 8.43 p.m. IST), engaged with the shooter in a “lobby-like area” on the school’s second floor and managed to neutralise her by 10.27 a.m. local time.
According to its website, the school has approximately 200 students.
While the U.S. troop presence exists explicitly and only to combat ISIS, during my visit the constant threat of attack by Iranian-sponsored militias was palpable. Forces dedicated to coordinating U.S. drones flying over Syrian skies and to radar and air defense systems deployed in U.S. bases in Syria were laser-focused on the array of Iranian-produced drones known to have been used for kamikaze-style attacks on U.S. forces in the region. As CENTCOM has made clear, countering ISIS and preventing its resurgence is the second most vital U.S. priority in the Middle East, but the first is facing down the threats posed by a hostile Iran.
While an ISIS attack during our visit underlined the terror group’s persistent threat, the reason for such a heightened awareness of Iranian threats was revealed on March 23, when an Iranian suicide drone hit a U.S. base in eastern Syria, killing a contractor and wounding five U.S. servicemembers. Such tit-for-tat incidents are far from new — this was the 79th Iranian attack on U.S. forces in Syria since January 2021 — but the deadly nature of the attack was extremely rare. The U.S. has not suffered a combat fatality in Syria for years. Retaliatory U.S. airstrikes on Iran-linked positions in the area followed just hours later, but it is unclear if they would be sufficient to deter further attacks. That Russia has markedly escalated its flight of fighter jets into U.S.-controlled airspace in northeastern Syria has complicated things further. One such ‘overflight’ occurred during our visit to the area — no coincidence given the presence of CENTCOM’s leadership.
Yet despite the challenges from malign states, the fight against ISIS remains the utmost priority. Since late 2019, three successive ISIS leaders have been killed on Syrian soil, along with dozens of senior and mid-level commanders. In terms of counterterrorism, we are unquestionably degrading ISIS. However, the terror group has one invaluable advantage on its side: the remnants of its “state” in the former of its former residents. In the final days of the fateful battle against ISIS’s last stand at al-Baghuz in March 2019, streams of ISIS fighters and family members were captured. Today, more than 10,000 battle-hardened ISIS militants languish in 26 makeshift SDF prisons and a further 54,000 women and children reside in secured camps.
This detainee crisis represents a humanitarian and security challenge the likes of which we have never faced before. On the ground, the scale is staggering, as is the profound security threats associated with it. “When you speak with residents, when you speak with the SDF securing the sites, when you speak with camp administration officials, you get a real sense of looming danger,” CENTCOM’s Kurilla told me after Blackhawk helicopters took us to the largest of the camps, al-Hol. “We have to have a real sense of urgency to address this problem through repatriation, rehabilitation, and reintegration,” Kurilla told me. “This requires all arms of the U.S. government; it requires the international community.”
The scale of this detainee crisis is unprecedented. Twenty-one years ago, 780 terrorism suspects were rendered to Guantanamo Bay, a self-contained detention facility on an isolated island thousands of miles from active conflict. Twenty-one years later, 31 remain there, despite concerted efforts by successive U.S. administrations to prosecute and repatriate prisoners. The ISIS fighters alone, numbering 10,000, would fill 13 Guantanamos at its original capacity. In northeast Syria, by contrast, we are dealing with a total of nearly 65,000 people from at least 55 countries, held in makeshift prisons and vast camps, amid ongoing civil conflict and an ISIS insurgency.
It is hard to understate the mammoth challenge associated with anything close to a resolution here. ISIS literally has an army in prisons — 10,000 in Syria and 20,000 next door in Iraq. At least 5,000 of ISIS’s most dangerous and committed fighters currently reside in Ghweiran prison in Hasakah, northeastern Syria. The facility, a former school, is administered by our SDF partners and its defenses paid for by the U.S. and coalition allies. During a visit to the prison, I heard of a just-foiled ISIS prison break coordinated by an Iraqi leader inside and operatives outside.
Prison breaks are part of ISIS’s DNA. They were the key to its dramatic resurgence in 2014. In January 2022, ISIS launched a massive attack on Ghweiran prison, ramming several vehicles rigged with explosives into exterior walls, then driving pick-up trucks full of weapons into the facility to arm prisoners. The assault had been coordinated by inmates and ISIS operatives on the outside. Some local prison guards had almost certainly been coerced into facilitating the initial attack. Ultimately, the incident triggered a 10-day battle that drew in U.S. and U.K. special forces and left more than 500 people dead. British government money has since reinforced the prison’s defenses, but ISIS is clearly not deterred.
But ISIS is not only interested in freeing its fighters — it is also determined to free the 50,000 women and children held in al-Hol camp, 40 kilometers away. Multiple major ISIS plots to attack al-Hol have been foiled in recent months. As we learned, SDF guards there have begun receiving ISIS threats by cell phone and now only enter the camp in U.S.-provided Bearcat armored vehicles. During a brief foray into the camp, we were flanked by multiple teams of U.S. special forces, American-operated Bradley fighting vehicles stood at every corner and U.S. drones and helicopters were in the sky above us.
The presence of more than 25,000 children in al-Hol is a humanitarian travesty and a ticking time bomb. In September, the SDF completed a weeks-long clearing operation in al-Hol that captured 300 ISIS operatives who had been living among the women and children along with weapons and explosives. A rocket-propelled grenade attack within the camp killed two SDF personnel, but equally concerning was the discovery of several “ISIS schools,” along with photo and video footage showing young children being taught ISIS’s ideology and support for violence and terrorism. The evidence we were shown from within the camp was similar to that created by ISIS’s propaganda outfits at the height of the terror group’s power. For CENTCOM, this is ISIS’s “next generation,” to complement its “army in detention.”
The only resolution to this detainee crisis is returning the men, women and children to their countries of origin for prosecution or rehabilitation and reintegration. Logistically, the challenge here is daunting. The vast majority of the nearly 50,000 women and children are from Iraq and Syria. To date, Iraq has engaged in an impressive returns process, but even so, it will take at least six years to complete. Of the roughly 12,000 Syrians, almost all are from regime-controlled areas, which precludes returns altogether. Following a concerted U.S. diplomatic push, repatriation of third country nationals achieved considerable momentum in 2022, but even so, only 1 percent were actually transferred home. It can take as long as a year to complete a single repatriation case and when it comes to the 10,000 male prisoners, there is no international willingness to repatriate at all.
If the situation remains the same, it will take at least 30 years to return the women and children alone. But U.S. troops, key to containing ISIS and securing the facilities, will almost certainly not be in Syria anywhere near that long due to slowly building pressures at home to disengage from conflicts in the region. Whenever the troops do leave, all hell will break loose. The Syrian regime has an unspeakable track record when it comes to ISIS, having all-but-ignored its rise since 2011. Even earlier, from 2003 to 2010, Assad’s regime actively supported ISIS’s insurgency against U.S. and allied forces in Iraq, providing training, intelligence and financial support, as well as facilitating the arrival of more than 90 percent of its suicide bombers across Syrian territory.
Failing to deal with this detainee crisis is a dream scenario for ISIS. This is a priority for the U.S., with the State Department now convening an inter-agency working group dedicated to the issue. But this is not nearly enough. A major international diplomatic mobilization is required to elevate the response to this challenge to the level required.
When ISIS marched into Mosul and across Iraq and Syria in 2014, the biggest international coalition in modern history took form to intervene. A similar effort is required now. If not, a catastrophic ISIS resurgence is just a matter of time.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
