Thousands of Hindus flee Pakistan, shocking tales of fear and torture

Fearing Taliban, Pak Hindus take Thar Express to India

Vimal Bhatia , TNN 10 September 2009

JAISALMER: In the past four years, some 5,000 Hindus may have crossed over from Pakistan, never to return. It has not been easy abandoning their homes, sometimes even their families, but they say they had no choice: they had to flee the Taliban.

It started as a trickle in 2006, the year the Thar Express was flagged off. The weekly train starts from Karachi, enters India at Munabao, a border town in Barmer, and runs up to Jodhpur. In the first year, 392 Hindus crossed over.

This grew to 880 in 2007. The next year, the number was 1,240, and this year, till August, over 1,000 have crossed over. They just keep extending their visas and hope to become Indian citizens.

Incidentally, these are official figures. Sources say there are many more who cross over and melt in the local milieu. And officials have a soft corner for these people, most of whom have harrowing stories to tell.

Ranaram, who used to live in the Rahimyar district of Pakistan’s Punjab, says he fell prey to the Taliban. His wife was kidnapped, raped and forcibly converted to Islam. His two daughters were also forcibly converted. Ranaram, too, had to accept Islam for fear of his life. He thought it best to flee with his two daughters; his wife was untraceable.

Dungaram, another migrant, says atrocities against Hindus in Pakistan have increased in the past two years after the ouster of Musharraf. “We won’t get permanent jobs unless we convert to Islam.”

Hindu Singh Sodha, president of Seemant Lok Sangathan, a group working for the refugees in Barmer and Jaisalmer, says there’s unfortunately no proper refugee policy in India even though people from Pakistan reach here in large numbers.

He said in 2004-05, over 135 families were given Indian citizenship but the rest are still living illegally in the country and are often tortured by police because they don’t have proper citizenship certificates. “In December 2008, over 200 Hindus were converted to Islam in Mirpur Khas town of Pakistan. But there are several others who want to stick to their religion but there’s no safety for them in Pakistan.”

Immigration officer at Munabao railway station, Hetudan Charan, says the arrival of Hindu migrants had suddenly increased as over 15 to 16 families were reaching India every week. “None of them admit they are to settle here but seeing their baggage, we easily understand,’’ he said.

Ravi Kumar, who was Barmer collector till his transfer two days back, said the government in 2007 had given permanent citizenship to a few Pakistani immigrants.

Iranian men stoned to death for adultery – Islam in action

To know more about stoning and video, click here. This is really the peace religion in action.

January 13, 2009
Men stoned to death for adultery, murder in Iran
Officials say two men in Iran stoned to death for adultery and murder

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Officials say two men in Iran have been stoned to death for adultery and murder, while another escaped death by digging his way out of the hole where he was buried to face a similar fate, according to media reports.

The sentences follow sharp criticism by human rights groups of Iran’s use of such punishments.

Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi on Tuesday told reporters about the stonings, which took place in the northeastern city of Mashhad about 20 days ago, the reports said.

According to the Mashhad prosecutor, the men committed various crimes, including adultery and murder, Jamshidi said.

In the practice, the men are buried up to their chests and people pelt them with stones until they die.

A third was supposed to have been stoned to death. However, he freed himself by climbing out of the stone hole. He still awaits punishment.

“Stoning is a horrific practice, designed to increase the suffering of those facing execution, and it has no place in the modern world,” Amnesty International said last year.

Jamshidi said Iran’s judiciary chief, Ayatollah Heshemi Shahroudi, had made recommendations that would ban the practice and said that a measure has been introduced in Parliament to stop the punishment.

But “until this measure is approved and becomes law, the judges have the independence not to pay heed to the recommendations of the Judiciary chief,” Jamshidi said.

Amnesty said in a report last year that Iran’s penal code allows execution by stoning as the penalty for adultery. The group said the law calls for stones “large enough to cause pain, but not so large as to kill the victim immediately.”

In August, Amnesty International issued a statement welcoming an announcement that stoning had been suspended and several women had their sentences commuted.

In that announcement, the group said at least one stoning execution was carried out in 2007 in Qazvin province and a woman and a man were known to have been stoned to death in Mashhad in May 2006.

“The majority of those sentenced to death by stoning are women. Women are not treated equally with men under the law and by courts, and they are also particularly vulnerable to unfair trials because their higher illiteracy rate makes them more likely to sign confessions to crimes they did not commit,” Amnesty said. end

Somalia raped girl stoned to death. Victim ‘begged for mercy’

4 November 2008
Stoning victim ‘begged for mercy’

A young woman recently stoned to death in Somalia first pleaded for her life, a witness has told the BBC.

“Don’t kill me, don’t kill me,” she said, according to the man who wanted to remain anonymous. A few minutes later, more than 50 men threw stones.

Human rights group Amnesty International says the victim was a 13-year-old girl who had been raped.

Initial reports had said she was a 23-year-old woman who had confessed to adultery before a Sharia court.

Numerous eye-witnesses say she was forced into a hole, buried up to her neck then pelted with stones until she died in front of more than 1,000 people last week.

Meanwhile, Islamists in the capital, Mogadishu have carried out a public flogging.

Islamists are becoming increasingly open in the capital, Mogadishu
Mogadishu is nominally under the control of government forces and their Ethiopian allies, who face frequent attacks by Islamist and nationalist insurgents.

The BBC’s Mohammed Olad Hassan in the city says the flogging was a show of strength.

He says two men accused of helping to kill a man and torture his mother, who they accused of theft, were each given 39 lashes in the north-eastern suburb of Suqa-hola.

The man who actually killed the alleged thief was released, after agreeing to pay his family 100 camels in compensation.

Before the flogging, hundreds of Islamist fighters performed a military parade, our reporter says.

Death threats

Cameras were banned from the stoning in Kismayo, but print and radio journalists who were allowed to attend estimated that the woman, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, was 23 years old.

People were saying this was not good for Sharia law, this was not good for human rights, this was not good for anything

Witness
However, Amnesty said it had learned she was 13, and that her father had said she was raped by three men.

When the family tried to report the rape, the girl was accused of adultery and detained, Amnesty said.

Convicting a girl of 13 for adultery would be illegal under Islamic law.

A human rights activist in the town told the BBC on condition of anonymity that he had received death threats from the Islamic militia, who accuse him of spreading false information about the incident.

He denies having anything to with Amnesty’s report.

‘Crying’

Court authorities have said the woman came to them admitting her guilt.

She was asked several times to review her confession but she stressed that she wanted Sharia law and the deserved punishment to apply, they said.

But a witness who spoke to the BBC’s Today programme said she had been crying and had to be forced into a hole before the stoning, reported to have taken place in a football stadium.

“More than 1,000 people arrived there,” he said.

“After two hours, the Islamic administration in Kismayo brought the lady to the place and when she came out she said: ‘What do you want from me?'”

“They said: ‘We will do what Allah has instructed us’. She said: ‘I’m not going, I’m not going. Don’t kill me, don’t kill me.’

“A few minutes later more than 50 men tried to stone her.”

‘Checked by nurses’

The witness said people crowding round to see the execution said it was “awful”.

“People were saying this was not good for Sharia law, this was not good for human rights, this was not good for anything.”

But no-one tried to stop the Islamist officials, who were armed, the witness said. He said one boy was shot in the confusion.

According to Amnesty International, nurses were sent to check during the stoning whether the victim was still alive. They removed her from the ground and declared that she was, before she was replaced so the stoning could continue.

The port of Kismayo was seized in August by a coalition of forces loyal to rebel leader Hassan Turki, and al-Shabab, the country’s main radical Islamist insurgent organisation.
Mr Turki is on the US list of “financers of terrorism”.

It was the first reported execution by stoning in the southern port city since Islamist insurgents captured it.

The BBC had a reporter in the area, but he was shot dead in Kismayo in June.

Another stoning incident  (from Iraq) and video here

Mumbai jihadis slit hostages throats and killed at regular intervals — Islam in action

Hostages’ throat were slit, killed at regular intervals

Ajay Banerjee,Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 30
Some of the people killed by terrorists in Mumbai may have been done to death in the most barbaric fashion – bled to death from slits caused by terrorists on their bodies. While it is clear that the hostages were kept hungry and without water for more than two days, it is also clear that defenceless people were killed in cold blood almost at regular intervals as the operations were going on.

If the panic in the nation was not enough, investigating security agencies, who were collating eye witness accounts of the NSG commandos, say a few of the dead were found chained with cuts on their bodies – bled to death from the wounds afflicted by the terrorists. It is typical of Jihadis to slit the throats, said a senior official.

The precise planning was the key to success of the terrorists and they had managed to keep the security forces at bay for such a long time as they had kept hostages with them and used them as human shields.

Since the terrorists had only dry fruits with them there was little chance that the hostages got anything to eat for two to three days.

Torture was evident, the NSG commandos have told investigators. A hotel guard and a guest were found dead in a room. They had been stripped naked, there were marks of beating, their legs chained and were bled to death from wounds caused by knives.

It is still not clear how many were kept hostage, but one thing is clear all were not in the same room. Some hostages were kept together and were moved by the terrorists every time they wanted to move from one floor to another. To distract the commandoes, hand grenades were hurled.

Sources said a major part of the damage and torture of the guests was committed within the first few hours. This started as most of the guests hid in their rooms and bathrooms, terrorists stormed into their rooms and shot them dead or blew up the room with bombs. Only a handful of hostages – about 24 – were with the terrorists.

The hostages who were with the terrorists were kept in a room and were made to kneel down on the floor at all times. It seems the killings of the last hostages were done in batches – says a couple of them killed every few hours. However, most of the hostages were likely to have been killed on the last day of the operation when the battle was coming to an end.

It was only when no more hostages were left to be used as a shield that the commandos began increasing the pressure and began pushing them for an all out assault. Early morning on Saturday, at the Old Taj hotel, the last terrorist was killed in the ensuing exchange.