A clash between two religious groups left a shopkeeper dead and three pedestrians injured on Tuesday.
The squabble broke out shortly after the funeral prayers for two activists of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), formerly known as Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan.
Old Golimar came to a standstill as two groups opened fire at each other. Traffic in and out of the area was suspended and it took law enforcers two hours to get the situation under control. Later the police called for back-up and managed to catch 21 suspects red-handed and confiscate their weapons.
On the night before the brawl (Monday), two ASWJ activists, Abdul Hafeez and Sajid aka Sajid Mullah, were gunned down in what appeared to be a targeted attack near Petal Wali Gali in Gulbahar police limits. On Tuesday, their funeral prayers were offered near their house close to where they were killed.
The police said that the violence broke out between ASWJ activists and members of another community when the funeral procession was on the way to a graveyard near Khajji Ground.
Rizvia SHO Masroor Ejaz told The Express Tribune that the clash was triggered when the procession reached Kazmia Imambargah. Unidentified suspects opened fire at the imambargah which broke its windows. A shopkeeper named Aqeel was caught in the crossfire and killed while three other passersby - Abbas, Rehman and Jaffer - were wounded. The officer said an investigation is under way.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 20th, 2011.
COMMENTS (4)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
Well, first I'll say that I'm not very religious but, I leave my outlook open ended for all possibilities. I suppose going further with the details of what I said would just end up trailing off topic and I'm not posting this comment to debate that topic. It's more or less being pointed out for the sake of anyone who would wrongly believe that I'm speaking from a biased point of view.
Religion isn't the problem. Atheism would not fix it, either. They'd just be doing the same things for different reasons. The fix is the addition of common sense to it and not picking and choosing elements of the religion to twist that are convenient for them as a scapegoat to justify everything and never admit to or acknowledge the existence of holes in their motives. After all, to admit to it would mean admitting to forms of blasphemy and we all know what happens to people accused of that. They'd probably be more aware of that aspect than anyone considering they're the types that brought punishing people for blasphemy into the system.
@Jehanzeb Akhtar
Troll Alert, do not engage the troll!!
Atheism is the only solution for our country.
We have all seen how religious fascism has brought nothing but death and destruction to our society.A severe form of religious hate and intolerance have made people enemies of each other.All this obsession with violent jihad,72 virgins and shahadat has made us into a society that glorifies violence and murder in the name of islam.Enough is enough, atheism is the only way out of this mess.
the proxies of iran and saudia have made pakistan a hell to live in.both these countries have funded mazhabi parties and madrassas in our country where islamic fascim is preached to lakhs of young minds every year.
Severe homophobia,misogyny,intolerance of atheists etc. is seared into the minds of children who then spread the religious poison when they go out into society.These madrassa kids are taught to hate ahmadis,non-muslims,agnostics and atheists.
saudia arabia and iran have very active intelligence agencies in pakistan,irani and saudi spies have helped the sectarian organisations spread their religious hatred in our society.