Muslims slaughter hundreds, mostly Christians in Nigeria

Hundreds slaughtered in Nigeria religious violence
By JON GAMBRELL (AP)

In this image taken from TV showing the bodies of victims of inter-faith violence as a crowd gathers around, in the town of Dogo Nahawa, Nigeria, about three miles (five kilometers) south of the city of Jos, Sunday March 7, 2010. Rioters armed with machetes slaughtered more than 200 people on Sunday, many of them women and children, which are being collected from where they lay, in the streets of this central Nigerian town. (AP Photo/NTA TV)

DOGO NAHAWA, Nigeria — The killers showed no mercy: They didn’t spare women and children, or even a 4-day-old baby, from their machetes. On Monday, women wailed in the streets as a dump truck carried dozens of bodies past burned-out homes toward a mass grave.

Rubber-gloved workers pulled ever-smaller bodies from the dump truck and tossed them into the mass grave. A crowd began singing a hymn with the refrain, “Jesus said I am the way to heaven.” As the grave filled, the grieving crowd sang: “Jesus, show me the way.”

At least 200 people, most of them Christians, were slaughtered on Sunday, according to residents, aid groups and journalists. The local government gave a figure more than twice that amount, but offered no casualty list or other information to substantiate it.

An Associated Press reporter counted 61 corpses, 32 of them children, being buried in the mass grave in the village of Dogo Nahawa on Monday. Other victims would be buried elsewhere. At a local morgue the bodies of children, including a diaper-clad toddler, were tangled together. One appeared to have been scalped. Others had severed hands and feet.

The horrific violence comes after sectarian killings in this region in January left more than 300 dead, most of them Muslim. Some victims were shoved into sewer pits and communal wells.

Sunday’s bloodshed in three mostly Christian villages appeared to be reprisal attacks, said Red Cross spokesman Robin Waubo.

Nigeria is almost evenly split between Muslims in the north and the predominantly Christian south. The recent bloodshed has been happening in central Nigeria, in towns which lie along the country’s religious fault line. It is Nigeria’s “middle belt,” where dozens of ethnic groups vie for control of fertile lands.

Rev. Pandang Yamsat, the president of a local Christian group, said he has urged his congregation not to respond violently to Muslims. However, he said he believes Muslims in the area want to control the region and that any peace talks would only give Muslims “time to conquer territory with swords.”

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, condemned the violence and said Monday that the conflict must be interpreted in the light of social, economic, ethnic and cultural factors rather than religious hatred.

The killings add to the tally of thousands who have already perished in Africa’s most populous country in the last decade due to religious and political frictions. Rioting in September 2001 killed more than 1,000 people. Muslim-Christian battles killed up to 700 people in 2004. More than 300 residents died during a similar uprising in 2008.

The killings in Dogo Nahawa, three miles (five kilometers) south of the region’s main city of Jos, began early Sunday.

Chuwanga Gyang, 30, said he heard a gunshot and left his house through the back door but stopped when he realized that the attackers were shooting to herd fleeing villagers toward another group of attackers carrying machetes.

He recalled climbing into a tree and watching as villagers were killed and the attackers set homes alight over the course of 90 minutes.

The attackers asked people “Who are you?” in Fulani, a language used mostly by Muslims, and killed those who did not answer back in Fulani, he said.

Plateau State spokesman Gregory Yenlong said police are seeking to arrest Saleh Bayari, the regional leader of the Fulanis, alleging Bayari had made comments incited the slaughter. He gave no details.

The chairman of the local Fulani organization denied that his people were involved in the violence.

Jos has been under a dusk-til-dawn curfew enforced by the military since January’s religious-based violence. It was not clear how the attackers managed to elude the military curfew early Sunday.

Christian evangelist Musah Paul Gindiri said the police and military provided no security to the villages attacked Sunday morning.

“We have seen our flock is becoming very restive as the government is not trying to protect them,” he said, warning that Christians would fight back if attacked again.

Acting President Goodluck Jonathan said security agencies would be stationed along Plateau state’s borders to keep outsiders from coming in with more weapons and fighters.

“(We will) undertake strategic initiatives to confront and defeat these roving bands of killers,” he said in a statement. “While it is too early to state categorically what is responsible for this renewed wave of violence, we want to inform Nigerians that the security services are on top of the situation.”

More than 600 people have fled to a makeshift camp that still held victims from January’s violence, said Red Cross official Adamu Abubakar. He expected more to come, putting an even bigger strain on the already limited humanitarian aid for those fleeing the violence.

Associated Press Writers Ahmed Saka in Jos, Nigeria; Bashir Adigun in Abuja, Nigeria; and Jude Owuamanam in Dogo Nahawa, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

Catholic Church in Kerala launches drive against ‘love jihad’ groups specialising in converting girls of other religions into Islam

Church launches drive against ‘love jihad’

Monday, October 12, 2009 , VR Jayaraj | Kochi, http://www.dailypioneer.com

The Catholic Church in Kerala has launched a campaign to withstand the efforts of ‘love jihadis’, groups allegedly specialising in converting girls of other religions into Islam through coercion after trapping them in love affairs. With this, the police authorities are worried that the situation could even lead to law and order problems if believers begin adopt confrontation strategies in the name of withstanding ‘love jihad’.

The Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Conference (KCBC), the umbrella organisation of all the bishops of the Catholic rites of Kerala, has started awareness campaigns to teach Christian girls and parents about the dangers of the “holy war of love” by certain Islamic groups. The council asks the parents to be on the alert at all times about the responses of their daughters, so that the danger of their falling into the Love Jehad trap could be avoided.

Officials in the Kerala Police Special Branch said they did not think that the problem had become such a menace that we would demand defence help against it or hold campaigns, as this could mislead believers to engage in open confrontations. In this situation, the Home Department has asked the Special Branch to keep a close watch on the alleged operations of ‘love jihadis’ as well as those who claim to be withstanding them.

The KCBC sprang into action against the ‘love jihadis’ as one of the two girls of a Pathanamthitta who were forcibly converted into Islam through the trap of love by two Muslim youths actually was a Christian. Also, there were reports of even Christian housewives with children being converted into Islam through rites held at Ponnani in the Muslim-majority Malappuram district.

In an article appearing in the latest issue of Jagratha, the publication of KCBC’s Commission for social harmony and vigilance, its secretary Fr Johny Kochuparambil writes that love jihad is a new war front opened by international Islamist extremists who want to use any available strategy to make Muslims the majority in the world. “For this, love jihadis accepted the strategy of spreading the pollen of hypocritical love on the campuses,” Fr Kochuparampbil says.

The KCBC advises parents to be vigilant always about their interactions not only in the house but outside the house and on their campuses also. It also puts forward certain practical instructions about controlling the use of mobile phone and Internet by the girls, social and parental observation on places like ice cream parlours, movie halls, parks, beaches, etc, monitoring the girls’ behaviour on a daily basis, etc.

The KCBC says there should have been a well-planned programme behind the 4,500-odd conversions of girls into Islam through love marriages in Kerala since 2005. The council says that ‘love jihadis’ had started to implement their love-conversion programme in Mangalore, Karnataka.

It says that several girls from Christian-concentrated areas of Kerala had become victims of the ‘love jihad’ in this manner. As all these girls were over 18, the parents were unable to question their decision legally, the article points out. It says that most of the girls converted into Islam could have ended up in Muslim orphanages and in the dens of extremists who used them for fulfillment of their carnal desires.

Information about the campaign for planned conversion into Islam through love had come out in the open after the case of two girls, MBA students at a Pathanamthitta college, came up in the Kerala High Court. The case was that Sirajuddeen and Shahehshah, activists of Campus Front, the students’ wing of NDF, had forced the girls to convert into Islam in the name of marriage. The girls claimed that the duo had tried to convert them into Islam after kidnapping them.

The Kerala High Court also directed the Union Home Department to investigate whether such outfits were operating nationally.

Rampaging Muslims in Pakistan riot and kill Christians, burn houses

Christians killed in Pakistan riots

A child and four women are among at least eight Christians killed after 40 houses and a church were set ablaze amid riots with Muslims in eastern Pakistan, officials have said.

Dozens of people were also injured in the violence in Pakistan’s Gojra village, which erupted after allegations surfaced that a Quran had been defiled, the officials said on Saturday.

“Six Christians including a child were killed and more than a dozen were injured in this sad incident,” Shahbaz Bhatti, a federal minister of minorities, told the AFP news agency by telephone.

“Some people blamed the Christians for the desecration of the holy Quran,” he said adding that the accusations were “baseless”.

Mohammad Saleem, a correspondent for The Dawn newspaper in Pakistan, told Al Jazeera: “The clashes erupted when a boy of a Christian community allegedly desecrated a few pages of the holy Quran.

“The Christians said the Muslims were in a mood to attack the locality.”

Renewed tensions

Police said that unrest between the two groups of villagers first flared late last month over a dispute over the Muslim holy book, which was later resolved.

But tensions erupted on Saturday when the Christian group were attacked again and their houses set on fire.

“Today, according to our information … this is the same issue of alleged desecration of the Quran,” Inkisar Khan, the city police chief, told reporters.

“All the dead are Christians. I was told that they were burned alive.”

Television footage from the area showed police using tear gas to disperse an angry mob.

Desecrating the Quran is punishable by death under the blasphemy laws of mainly Muslim Pakistan, but no such sentences have been carried out.

Christians, who make up less than three per cent of Pakistan’s population of 150 million, say the blasphemy laws are used as an excuse to victimise them.

6 Christians Killed in Pakistan Violence
By VOA News
01 August 2009

Authorities say six Christians, including four women and a child, have been killed in clashes with Muslims in Pakistan’s eastern province of Punjab.

The provincial minister for minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, said a group of radical Muslims burned the homes of Christians in the city of Gojra Saturday, after accusing them of desecrating Islam’s holy book, the Koran.

Bhatti said there was no truth to the allegations.

Television footage from the scene showed houses burning and streets strewn with blackened debris. There were also reports of gunfights.

Provincial officials urged both the Muslim and Christian communities to show restraint.

Elsewhere, police said Saturday they had arrested a member of an al-Qaida linked group, suspected of involvement in several attacks including last year’s suicide bombing of Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel.

Authorities detained Rao Shakir, a suspected member of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, on the outskirts of Islamabad this week.

In other news, schools in Pakistan’s northwest re-opened Saturday, for the first time in three months.

Schools were closed during intense fighting between Taliban militants and the Pakistan military that erupted after the collapse of a peace deal.

The students said Saturday they were happy to be back in class, although many were still absent. Most of the nearly two million people who fled the fighting have yet to return to the area, which includes Swat Valley, Lower and Upper Dir and other areas of Malakand district.

The militants, who fought to impose strict Islamic law (Sharia) in parts of northwest Pakistan, targeted schools, especially those that taught girls. More than 350 schools were damaged or destroyed.

Students from the damaged schools learned lessons in tents Saturday.

Pakistan’s government began allowing the displaced to return, after saying it had cleared parts of the northwest of Taliban militants.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.

Indian Muslim clerics issue fatwa against homosexuality

Clerics in Moradabad issue fatwa against homosexuality
Published on : Friday 03 2009 18:47 – by, ANI

Moradabad, July 3 – ANI: A day after the Delhi High Court overturned ban on gay sex, Muslim clerics in Moradabad have issued a fatwa against homosexuality.

The Delhi High Court on Thursday had ruled that gay sex was not a crime, a verdict that will bolster demands by gay and health groups that the government scrap a British colonial law.

The ruling is expected to be repeal the 1861 law that makes homosexual sex punishable.

However, the verdict did not go down well with Muslim clerics.

Justifying the fatwa, Sibtey Nabi Ashrafi, a Muslim cleric said that relationship between same sexes is against the law of the nature and against Islam.

“Relationship between same sexes is unnatural and we cannot bear it. Islam forbids sex between same genders. We have issued a fatwa since its illegal. Both male and female have particular role to play and it’s against the nature of the law,” said Ashrafi.

The court’s ruling that homosexual sex among consenting adults is not a crime is expected to boost an increasingly vocal pro-gay lobby that says the British-era law was a violation of human rights.

The ruling applies to the whole of the nation, but can be appealed at the Supreme Court. – ANI

Muslim mob attacks Christians in Pakistan, hundreds flee

Christian families in Kasur hide from angry mobs

* Christians say blasphemy charges result of misunderstanding, argument between two boys
* DCO ‘apologises’ to Christians

By Ali Usman

LAHORE: At least 110 Christian families, almost 700 people, were forced on Tuesday night to flee Bahmniwala, a village in Kasur, after angry mobs attacked and threatened to burn their houses for allegedly committing blasphemy.

The families sought safety in the fields surrounding their village, even as local mosques urged the Muslims to unite and “teach a lesson” to the Christians, residents told Daily Times. However, locals told Daily Times the problem started when a Christian boy, Arif Mashi, was travelling on a tractor and asked a Muslim boy, Muhammad Riaz, to allow him to pass. When Riaz refused, the two quarrelled.

Following this incident, on Tuesday night, a mob attacked houses of the area’s Christian community with petrol-bombs, destroying their electricity meters and thrashing any Christians they found. On Wednesday, the Muslim community refused to communicate with the Christian community, boycotting their businesses. The Christians who returned to their homes found they had no electricity or drinking water the entire day. “Despite the presence of police, the mosques continued to urge a complete Christian boycott,” Sohail Johnson, chief coordinator of the Sharing Life Ministry, said.

Human Rights and Minority Affairs Minister Kamran Michael said he had asked officials of the Revenue Department to compile an estimate of the loss suffered by the Christian community. He said justice would be ensured, adding the government would investigate the people responsible for turning the incident into a religious issue.

A committee comprising Christian and Muslim elders of the area, led by Kasur District Coordination Officer (DCO) Abdul Jabbar Shaheen, was formed on Wednesday to look into the matter and negotiate a peace deal between the two groups. The committee has been given four days to settle the matter.

DCO: The DCO said Islam did not allow cruelties against minorities. In his capacity as the DCO, he apologised to the Christians for the treatment that was meted out to them. A fact-finding mission led by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), will travel to the area today (Thursday) to probe into the matter.

Christian Man Raped, Murdered for Refusing to Convert to Islam, Family Says

Christian Man Raped, Murdered for Refusing to Convert to Islam, Family Says
Saturday, June 13, 2009 
By Nora Zimmett

This A young Christian man was raped and brutally murdered in Pakistan for refusing to convert to Islam, and police are doing nothing about it, the victim’s brother and minister told FOXNews.com.

Pakistani police reportedly found the body of Tariq “Litto” Mashi Ghauri — a 28-year-old university student in Sargodha, Pakistan — lying dead in a canal outside a rural village in Punjab Province on May 15. He had been raped and stabbed at least five times.

“They have sexually abuse him, torture him with a knife on his testicle and genitals,” Ghauri’s brother, 24-year-old Salman Nabil Ghauri, said. “They have tortured him very badly, and after that they have stabbed five times with a knife and killed him.”

The family believes Litto Ghauri was murdered by the brothers of his Muslim girlfriend, Shazi Cheema, after they found him in a compromising sexual position with their sister.

The Rev. Haroon Bhatti, a Christian clergyman in the village and a friend of the Ghauri family, said Cheema’s three brothers came to Litto Ghauri’s house on May 11 and gave him an ultimatum: Marry their sister and convert to Islam.

Ghauri agreed to the marriage but refused to accept Islam, and the brothers kidnapped him at gunpoint and drove him to a remote farmhouse, where they tortured and murdered him, the minister said.

“On that farmhouse — four days there — we all, Christians and family, were searching for him,” the Rev. Bhatti said. “I was with him. I was searching for him.”

After police discovered the body, Ghauri’s death was declared a homicide and the family filed paperwork with the Atta Shaheed police station in their small village, Adda 44SB. But Ghauri’s brother said police still have not arrested the alleged killers and have refused to meet with his family.

“They don’t want to meet us, and the three of them who are murderers are outside,” Salman Nabil Ghauri told FOXNews.com. “They are free. Nothing is happening to them. No investigation is running.”

The Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C., told FOXNews.com that they knew nothing of the incident but were looking into it.

But one embassy official questioned the truth of the report.

“On the face of it, this appears to be exaggerated,” said the Pakistani official who asked not to be named. “This does not happen over there.”

The official said that minorities are very well represented in the Pakistani Parliament, and if someone in fact were murdered for not converting to Islam, “it would have been reported hugely.”

The embassy official added, “if an incident of that nature happened over there, there would have to be an investigation.”

Yet human rights watchdog groups say that what happened to Litto Ghauri is not uncommon because Christians in Pakistan are looked upon as the dregs of society. Pakistan’s population is 97 percent Muslim, and Christians are only a very small part of the remaining 3 percent.

“What the Muslim society has done in Pakistan is just associate low caste with being Christian,” said Jeremy Sewall, Advocacy Director of the International Christian Concern, which first reported the killing. “Many of these people, they clean human waste and that’s their job, and that’s what Christians are known for in Pakistan.”

The Rev. Bhatti says that radical Muslims frequently try to trap Christian men into converting to Islam by using a woman as bait — and Ghauri suspects the involvement of his dead brother’s girlfriend in trying to entrap him.

“It’s common to offer things — money, women — to Christians to convert,” Bhatti said.

Pakistan is one of the most hostile countries in the world for minority religions. The country still has blasphemy laws on the books that forbid saying or writing anything against Islam or the Koran. Punishment can include death.

“You basically have a situation where people can kind of act with impunity in the public,” said Paula Schriefer, advocacy director at Freedom House, a human rights group. “They use these laws to sort of settle scores … or, in situations like this, actually engage in kind of forced conversions.”

The U.S. State Department’s 2008 International Religious Freedom Report on Pakistan says, “Government policies do not afford equal protection to members of majority and minority religious groups.”

The Ministry of Religious Affairs, which is supposed to protect religious freedom, has a verse from the Koran on its masthead, the report said: “Islam is the only religion acceptable to God.”

While the U.S. government has provided millions of dollars in public outreach programs to help teach religious tolerance in Pakistan, human rights watchers say it’s not sufficient.

“There’s probably not enough that the U.S. government is doing to really talk about this issue because it’s such an important issue in Pakistan because faith is so important to them,” said Sewall.

The small Christian community is hoping that Ghauri’s death will bring attention to the plight of minority religious groups in Pakistan.

“Several incidents of Christian persecution go unnoticed in Pakistan because they occur in the furthest parts of Pakistan,” the Rev. Bhatti said. “This is Pakistan — predominantly Muslim. So they’re the rulers. They rule us.”

For Christian families like the Ghauris, living in a remote village in Pakistan, options are few. Because of their poverty they can neither leave nor help secure their own safety.

“We have very little family,” said Salman Nabil Ghauri, whose mother died years ago and whose father worked as a day laborer until the killing. “My father was a daily worker. Now he is earning nothing. He is fully mad now. He cannot understand anything — he is still in the shock of death.

“My elder son is dead, and I am only one person. Where can I run? I cannot start my studies or run after my case. What should I do?”

Muslims, Christians clash in Thiruvananthapuram Kerala, 5 killed, 38 injured

On Sunday afternoon, a group of youth from Bheemappally stormed into Cheriyathura, hurling bombs at the people of the rival side. The police opened fire, killing four people on the spot, as the mob moved towards a local church. Another person succumbed to injuries on Monday. Nearly 38 men have been injured in the incident.

Kerala clash toll rises to 5, police blamed

Shaju Philip

May 19, 2009

Thiruvananthapuram: An eerie silence had descended upon the coastal region of Bheemappally-Cheriyathura, only to be intermittently ruptured by police sirens criss-crossing the narrow roads. Securitymen in different uniforms stood guard in front of shops which remained closed for the second day after the police firing to avert communal clashes claimed five lives.

The fishermen village looked deserted as families fled fearing retaliation from the rivals side. Gutted country boats and fishing nets remained testimony to the flames that had suddenly engulfed the village.

It all began on Saturday when a goon from Cheiryathura, a Christian belt, tried to extort money from merchants at Bheemappally, a Muslim-dominated region. After being manhandled by the locals, the goon, Shibu, rushed to Cheriyathura only to return with a company of his men to retaliate. The gang from Cheriyathura set ablaze a fishing net at Bheemappally.

Though the police intervened on Saturday night itself, they lowered their guard assuming normalcy had returned. On Sunday afternoon, a group of youth from Bheemappally stormed into Cheriyathura, hurling bombs at the people of the rival side. The police opened fire, killing four people on the spot, as the mob moved towards a local church. Another person succumbed to injuries on Monday. Nearly 38 men have been injured in the incident.

“There was nothing communal about the incident. The police should have taken action against the goons who had forcibly collected money from the other side,” said Christopher Raj of Cheriyathura.

“Police inaction precipitated the crisis. They failed to clamp prohibitory orders on Saturday night itself,” Bheemappally Jama-at president N V Aziz said. He said the police sprayed bullets on the mob without exhausting other avenues. “A goon’s action should not have snowballed into a communal flare-up. The police failed to prevent his attempt to collect money from visitors of the Bheemappally mosque,” he said.

But police sources refuted the charges. “We had stuck to all formalities before the firing. The region and nearby areas are too sensitive to bear a minor provocation. The coast’s history is replete with several communal clashes. We had no other option but to fire to prevent a major clash between Christians and Muslims,” police sources pointed out.

The Muslim community reacted in an emotive manner towards the incident. They took away two dead bodies from the spot of firing and kept them until midnight demanding the intervention of senior police officers and ministers.

All Muslim organisations on Monday came out in protest against the police action. They sought a judicial probe and adequate compensation for the families of victims. A march to the Secretariat was attended by all organisations.

The LDF Government instantly ordered a judicial probe. A meeting chaired by Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan also announced compensation of Rs 10 lakh for the families of each victim and Rs 10,000 to Rs 1 lakh for the injured.

But Muslim organisations are demanding better packages. They have also called for a dawn-to-dusk shut-down in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday.

Police sources said the situation was under control as battalions of Rapid Action Force, CRPF and Kerala Armed Police were camping in the region. Meanwhile, the goon who triggered the violence was taken into custody on Monday evening.  End

Will history repeat itself?

Express News Service : 19 May 2009

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Cheriyathura, which is bleeding from the wounds inflicted by the police on Sunday, is the same place where three persons were killed in the police firing in 1959.

The struggle that followed had led to the downfall of the EMS Ministry.

A pregnant woman, Flori, who was killed in that firing, had emerged as a martyr of the Liberation Struggle.

Sunday’s police firing killed five persons. Though there are no political and social issues involved in the clashes, the Popular Front of India (PFI), an offshoot of the erstwhile NDF with its extremist brand of politics, is all set to draw political mileage out of the issue. The character of the coastal regions of the Thiruvananthapuram district has always been volatile; ready for the most violent reaction at the slightest provocation. Earlier, on July 18, 1992, a very minor incident had resulted in a massive riot at the neighbouring Poonthura.

The political situation prevailing then after the demolition of the Babri Masjid had added fuel to the fire.

Last Saturday night, a criminal Kombu Shibu, alias Shibu, of the fishermen’s colony at Cheriyathura had gone on an extortion drive in the nearby Beemapally area.

Shibu had been regularly engaged in collecting extortion money from the traders of Beemapally, notorious for the smuggled goods business.

When the traders refused to give extortion money, Shibu and his friends damaged some shops there. He also destroyed fishing boats anchored at the Beemapally shore. In retaliation, a group of young men from Beemapally entered Cheriyathura area and damaged vehicles parked there. What followed was a group war. As both groups belonged to different communities, the clashes took a communal colour soon. The police team, which rushed to the spot, could ensure a temporary truce late on Saturday night.

But, things went out of control on Sunday. The attacks were repeated more violently. Houses and fishing boats were attacked in both Cheriyathura and Beemapally.

Several people were seriously injured. When the police team arrived on the spot, country bombs were reportedly hurled at them. The police resorted to firing, killing five men. This is the version the police give off-the-record.

Locals point out several loopholes in the police theory. Their allegation is that the police resorted to firing without taking the lathi-charge or tear gas shell-firing routes. There are also reports that Sub Collector K. Biju had refused to order firing.

A police officer in the rank of Assistant Commissioner stationed in the area had ordered the firing – disregarding the advice of the Sub Collector – after receiving approval from some quarters.

The incident would have been controlled if the police had taken steps to control the activities of Shibu. Shibu was released from jail only recently and had resumed collecting extortion money from the traders of the area.

There were reports that Shibu had recently collected extortion money even from an ASI of the Valiyathura police station.

There were also reports that the police had not been able to nab Shibu reportedly owing to his connections with some persons in the police force.

It was on the same Cheriyathura beach that Flory Pereira and her fellow martyrs of the Liberation Struggle, Lazer Pereira and Antony Rebeira, were killed in the police firing of July 3, 1959. They had lost their lives during a protest march against the EMS-led Government.

Hartal begins in Thiruvananthapuram

Thiruvananthapuram, Tuesday19 May 2009

Various Muslim organisations have jointly called for a dawn to dusk hartal in Thriuvananthapuram today, following the killing of five people near the Beemapally area in the city in police firing on Sunday evening.

Five persons were killed and 36 were injured when police opened fire to prevent a mob from attacking a place of worship on the Cheriathura beach here on Sunday afternoon. Two houses and a boat were damaged in the violence.

The State government has deployed two companies of the Central Reserve Police Force in the area. The locality is under curfew.

The police suspect Badusha, Hakim and Syed Ali, alias Nissan, of Beemapally to have died from bullet injuries. Joy, 38, Rajeev, 34 and Antony, 48, from Cheriathura were among those who received bullet wounds. The police suspect Ahmed Salim of Beemapally to have been killed in the communal clash.

The violence was the consequence of a minor clash between traders at Beemapally, a foreign goods business centre, and a gang of extortionists and drug peddlers operating out of Cheriathura on Saturday night.

Anticipating trouble, the police had posted men to the beach separating the two localities, each dominated by either of the communities.

Deputy Commissioner of Police A.V. George said 600 men from Beemapally, many of them armed with swords and crude bombs, advanced towards Cheriathura around 4 p.m. They torched two houses and a fishing boat. Cheriathura residents marshalled their community members and advanced towards the Beemapally group.

The small police party, three of them armed with rifles, were caught sandwiched between the advancing groups. He said the police targeted the mobs after lobbing of teargas shells and firing into the air failed to dissuade them from the attack. The police were repeatedly attacked with firebombs, he said. They later recovered several unexploded crude bombs from the spot.
Ward councillor Beemapally Rasheed said the police action was one-sided and directed against the members of a particular community. He said the police had targeted innocent residents who had gathered on the beach after they felt threatened by the aggressive grouping of their neighbours.