Bodies dumped outside governor's house
2013-01-16 18:19
Peshawar - Pashtun tribesmen from northwest Pakistan
dumped 15 bloody bodies in front of government offices on Wednesday, protesting
against what they said were extra-judicial killings by security forces in the
latest challenge to the government's authority.
The protest in the north-western city of Peshawar follows
a three-day sit-in by members of the Shi'ite community alongside the bodies of
96 people killed in a sectarian bomb attack in the south-western city of
Quetta, and coincides with a protest against corruption in the capital that has
attracted thousands of people who have set up tents in front of parliament.
The Supreme Court also ordered the arrest of Prime
Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on Tuesday in connection with a corruption
investigation, compounding a sense of crisis for the government.
In Peshawar, the protesters said members of the security
forces had arrested the victims on Tuesday after the beheading of six
paramilitary forces in the area three days ago.
Their bullet-riddled bodies were later dumped in their
village in the in Alamgudar area of the Khyber region, the protesters said.
The Frontier Corps, the paramilitary force chiefly
responsible for the area, did not give an official comment.
Privately, officers denied responsibility.
In an echo of the Quetta demonstration last week, the
protesters laid out the bodies on blankets in front of the governor's house in
the provincial capital and insisted they would not bury them until their
demands were met.
Those include an impartial inquiry and punishment for
those responsible.
Demands
A committee of the protesters demanded that the
government stop a military operation in their area, withdraw a five-year-old
curfew and compensate the victims.
"Where we should go to seek justice?" asked
protester Gulajab Afridi.
"There is dark night in Khyber Agency. There is no
one to check the barbarism of the Frontier Corps against local people. Our
blood is worth nothing."
He said villagers were trapped between the military and
the militants.
"The militants of Lashkar-e-Islam wanted us to stay
in our homes and don't want us to vacate our villages but when we stay there,
the security forces arrest us on charges of supporting the militants,"
said 45-year old Haji Gul Jabbar Afridi.
Human rights groups have for years accused the security
forces of abductions and killings.
The security forces deny that.
The rights group Amnesty International said in a recent
report that civilians in the ethnic Pashtun areas along the Afghan border,
where Taliban and al-Qaeda militants operate, are frequently abducted, tortured
and executed by either the military or the militants.
The military strongly refuted the report.
While the Frontier Corps declined to comment a force official
speculated that the killings might have been done by militants in disguise.
"They were the militants who wear Frontier Corps
uniform and kidnap people and later kill them just to create hatred among the
people against Pakistani security forces," he said.
